Guidant Global’s Best Companies 3* accreditation

By Nicky Hale, Head of Talent Engagement

​​We couldn’t have asked for #ABetterWay to close 2019 than by having received a 3* accreditation award from Best Companies! Our Head of Talent Engagement, Nicky Hale, talks about what this means to us, and what’s in store for 2020…

Being yourself at work makes for happy employees.
At Guidant, we always encourage our people to bring their authentic selves to work, so they can feel and be their best in and out of the office. While it’s one thing to think we’ve got a great employee engagement initiative, being recognised at this standard by an external prestigious body like Best Companies is a brilliant affirmation that we really do put our people first.

We want to lead by example of #ABetterWay by being a positive and powerful influence for the recruitment industry (and beyond!) in how things should be done. And the crux of the matter is, it simply starts from treating your people right.

Our secret to 3* is…
While we can’t exactly determine what the main driver was for certain, our new remuneration strategy has created a big impact for our people. It is a transparent approach to remuneration which is built upon a meritocracy framework, which quite simply allows people to be rewarded financially for their loyalty and hard work.

Whilst money is not everything for a lot of our people, it’s still incredibly important to feel that you are fairly remunerated for the work that you do and we feel that we have really taken a giant step forward with our approach to remuneration in 2020.

Additionally, our focus on learning and development (our online portal, GLADIS, allows our people to never stop learning), as well as our flexible career progression path (which keeps things transparent and easy for everyone to understand where they are in the business, and how they can progress ahead, or step sideways across functions) have also always been our strong suits.

About 50% of our people this year have secured new roles internally – something we’re incredibly proud of.

Our culture brings us together, wherever we are.
We’ve always had a really inclusive culture, but having a dedicated People Services team has made all the difference. Having been appointed in early 2018, the team has really been able to focus on #ABetterWay of looking after our people. Whether it’s someone working in our Luton head office, or working on a client site in Scotland, we ensure that our supportive and collaborative culture reaches the length and breadth of our business.

One example of how we do things #ABetterWay is by removing our traditional appraisal system, and launching 1-on-1 OpenBlends. While you can read up on our Mental Health First Aiders and 2019 Summer Celebration, we’ve also got great initiatives like our employee-led D&I community INfluence, Golden Thread, CSR days and more…but we can save that for another blog.

So, what’s next?
We have some big plans for next year in terms of Performance, Learning and Development but I don’t want to let the cat out of the bag just yet! We also have an exciting new induction process that we’ve been working on behind the scenes with the winning group of our internal initiative, Progressive People (our own take on The Apprentice, if you will) which will be rolled out in 2020, so stay tuned!

​

About Best Companies
Best Companies’ accreditation programme is the standard for workplace engagement. Attaining a 3* accreditation is their highest standard of workplace engagement, representing organisations that truly excel – an accreditation that reflects ‘extraordinary’ levels of workplace engagement.

Our people come first, and their progression is of our utmost focus. Join an inclusive family where you’re in charge of driving your career ahead >