01732 759725 44 VOX POP continued... holiday allowances and conducting more regular in-person office celebrations to bring people together and boost morale. “It’s not just our internal team, we’ve also seen a surge in the number of customers seeking to win back time and streamline processes across their business. Take our core business management solution e-automate, for example. The solution has been designed to act as a business’ hardest working employee and is proving useful for those struggling to recruit amid staff shortages. “We believe it’s important to reflect the changes to wider society within our own culture. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, we have shifted to a mixture of hybrid and fully remote work schemes, to allow people to have the flexibility they now prioritise. By doing this we’ve boosted staff attraction and retention across many functions of the business. “Given the importance of a good work-life balance, we also look to keep commuting times to a minimum where possible to ensure colleagues are less stressed and feel more empowered. “It’s important to ensure that our employees feel trusted, independent and autonomous. Not only this, but with the current cost of living crisis, keeping our employees’ commute times to a minimum means they save money, as the price of fuel remains high, allowing them to invest in better quality of life in other aspects of their days can help to keep them happier. “As mentioned above, developing schemes to work remotely has become a large part of the culture here, as it has in many industries. We are also investing time and money into well-being for our staff. We have instigated internal newsletters for our office technology business in order to acknowledge staff performance, as we believe that this helps to boost morale and also build culture, which can be hard to create in remote working roles, as often the office small talk does not take place in these roles. “We also have a rewards programme in place, based around peer recognition. The program is called the high 5 scheme, essentially this is where staff get points for acknowledgements of their good work by their colleagues, and they can redeem these points on a variety of bonuses, such as towards purchases, activities outside of work and eating out. “People today expect all aspects of their working life to better mirror their overall life ethics. Just as they want to shop more ethically and use the services of more eco-friendly companies, they also want to work with companies with strong ESG policies, for example. A large part of this at the moment is about empowering staff members to take more control and responsibility over their life at work. By addressing flexible working and giving some of the responsibility for the acknowledgment of good work back to the employees, instead of always coming from management, has allowed a massive opportunity for that. “Similarly, by basing our new initiatives on the specific issues staff have raised, means that we provide a much healthier environment for our employees to work in. A combination of these factors is naturally going to be a more appealing environment for attracting potential talent to the company. Ensuring that employees are given as much as they can, in order to be happy has always been important to us, and now we are continuing to do our best to keep that up with the changes that have come in the last few years.” www.ecisolutions.com Laura White, Head of Global Talent, PaperCut: “Filling vacancies has definitely been a challenge that has resulted in us shifting the way we approach recruitment. We are spending much more time actively reaching out to potential candidates than ever before. We have also focused heavily on our employer brand and marketing rather than relying on job applications, which are at an all-time low. “The shift to remote and now hybrid working brought on by the pandemic has certainly made us ask ourselves, ‘Who are we as an employer?’. Some things, such as our vision and values, haven’t changed but our working environment has. Something we are determined not to lose is the connections between ‘PaperCutters’ that make our culture special. The way we stay connected is where we’ve seen the greatest change and where we needed to become much more intentional. “Retaining employees goes beyond paying them fairly. Companies have a role to play in looking after employee well-being and must be cognisant to the wider challenges society is facing, from the ongoing pandemic to geopolitical tensions to an accelerating climate crisis. At HP, we’ve had in place ‘wellness programmes’ that focus on physical health, financial wellness and life balance. We’ve found uptake for these programmes has increased over the past couple of years and we will continue to support our employees in all aspects of their lives so they can do their best work – while learning, growing, and feeling engaged.” www.hp.com Emma Davies-Carolan, Senior Director International Marketing, ECI Software Solutions: “The fall-out of the great resignation and the COVID-19 pandemic seems to have impacted skilled staff at all levels, across most industries. At ECI, we’ve certainly seen staff prioritising a good work-life balance, wanting to focus on quality of life and family time. “At ECI, we offer a range of benefits that are derived from listening to the needs of staff and implementing new initiatives accordingly, such as increasing Emma Davies-Carolan
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