Great Place to Work special awards

CarTrawler

‘Getting to know your colleagues’

We spend a lot of life with our colleagues at work – collaborating , delivering on projects and sitting beside them at meetings but how well do we really know them, their hobbies, their interests?

This organisation recognises that everyone has their own interests and passions outside of work. CarTrawler employees were given the chance to engage with these passions during their working day. The initiative called ‘Under the Umbrella’ gave CarTrawler employees the opportunity to host a number of events designed to appeal to their employees’ passions and interests. The practice encouraged everyone to get to know their colleagues on a personal level and enhance social connections.

Events hosted ranged from movie nights to photography sessions

Heineken

Peer-to-peer recognition at its best

The aim of this programme was to encourage high performance through the company culture and to support employees to achieve the company vision. The company ethos is to put safety first, be brave, make decisions and to work together and win together. It was felt a good way to reinforce these behaviours would be to introduce a peer-recognition programme which would give employees the chance every quarter to nominate a peer they feel embodies these values. It was rolled out at the annual staff conference, where employees engaged in an experience aimed at bringing values to life. The quarterly award winners went forward for the overall annual awards programme, with a chance to achieve more recognition.

Globoforce

Shining the spotlight on this vital area

Globoforce puts the health and wellness of its employees to the centre of its business. Under the three pillars of physical, mental and social wellness, the organisation ran numerous awareness sessions, competitions, workshops and activities designed to support its employees personal health and wellness goals. To shine the spotlight on its approach to health and well-being, the company organised the GloboWellness challenge, spread over six weeks. The challenges not only educated employees on the importance of wellness but also increased social connections among peers through teamwork. This approach goes alongside a wellness calendar published at the start of the year and reinforcing the importance of this area.

ESRI Ireland

Creating a buzz about your Great Place to Work journey

Organisations often ask how they should communicate their Great Place to Work results and show employees the efforts being made to improve the culture?

Using its own technology, ESRI Ireland created an interactive site that not only communicated its results but also showcased how the organisation planned and made improvements to its culture. This site was available to employees and showed the improvements the company had made in the areas of communication, career development and performance management.

Electric Ireland

Great Place to Work team award

We know a key element of creating a Great Place to Work is to establish a passionate team of people to work on making improvements.

To enhance its employee experience, Electric Ireland established a ‘Great Place to Work’ team made up of people across the entire company. A senior sponsor was appointed to support their efforts and the team reviewed the feedback received by the Great Place to Work Institute and worked on making improvements.

The following is a flavour of some their achievements:

No phones at meetings

To encourage more productive meetings, boxes were put into all meeting rooms so mobile phones could be stored safely. Not only has it helped ensure productive meetings, it has also encouraged people to engage with each other rather than staring at their phones.

Free from email afternoon

On the last Friday of every month, a no-internal-email policy was introduced. This has not only given people a break from emails but has also encouraged one-to-one interactions and has enhanced connections between people in different departments.

No meeting Fridays

A new initiative was introduced, encouraging people to not organise meetings on Friday and instead to have casual chats with the relevant people at their desks or over a coffee.

Great Place to Work ambassador

Every journey needs a warrior

Helen Fahy

This award acknowledges an individual who contributes significantly to the understanding of the Great Place to Work model and methodology. Helen Fahy has worked tirelessly across all of the Doyle Collection hotels to encourage leadership teams and employees to create and sustain a strong culture for their people. The company's culture is strong in the areas of recognition and treating people as an asset, knowing this will in turn enhance its customer experience. Helen has a wide degree of expertise in organisational culture and has recently upskilled her expertise in employer branding.