The Progeny People Index is a round-up of what we’re doing across the business to take care of our team members and to help them grow, flourish and excel.
Working on wellbeing
At the core of the Progeny People Index is employee wellbeing. We appointed 12 Wellbeing Champions to lead a company-wide commitment to nurturing wellbeing. The Champions have met more than 30 times and rolled out countless initiatives to promote wellbeing throughout the business. Highlights have included a wellbeing day; encouraging conversation with the Time to Talk initiative; the gift of a wellbeing hour on World Mental Health day; 25 random acts of kindness to spread positivity and good feeling; and a steady supply of learning and guidance material.
Growing the team
We took a decision early on in the pandemic not to furlough any of our team or make anyone redundant. In fact, over the past 12 months we have grown our workforce significantly, taking on 59 new team members. In total in the year to May 2021 we have handled 3421 applications and held 239 interviews. Our ‘Just for Starters’ sessions are for new joiners to the company, where they have the opportunity to meet colleagues at all levels, including the CEO, and get to know each other better in the remote working environment.
Support and safety nets
At the beginning of the pandemic, we launched our Employee Assistance Programme. It provides a range of services to support our staff in maintaining good mental and physical health. It includes a 24/7/365 confidential helpline, counselling sessions, medical information, critical incident and trauma support and online advice, and has helped 21 of our team members since launch.
Enlisting the experts
To complement the work of our HR and Learning & Development teams, we invited in 4 external experts to share their knowledge and advice. All of the Board, Senior Leadership Team and Managers have attended a Mental Health Masterclass for Managers facilitated by David Beeney of Breaking the Silence to ensure teams are supported in the best way possible. We have also held a number of all-staff sessions including: a Resilience Masterclass with Caroline Dakin; How to build happiness through humour session with Laughology; and a presentation from Andy’s Man Club on male mental health.
Work perks
We believe in treating our team members with respect and compassion as part of building a mature relationship between our people and the company. With this in mind, we offer a number of benefits that allow them to blend their work and home lives in ways that help them adapt to busy modern routines. Part-time working, hybrid home-office working models and flexible start and finish times all contribute to this.
Fun and games
We take our fun just as seriously as our work. In lockdown, we got creative with our Christmas party, sent all staff their own gift boxes and held an online wine-tasting session. Our Progeny Awards ceremony celebrated the fantastic achievements of our teams right across the business. With our weekly Progeny Points system we show our appreciation for our colleagues all year round – and give them the chance to pick up some swag. The Progeny League is a hotly contested cross-company championship for those who like to keep things competitive, with a mix of activities ranging from fitness to creativity and the opportunity for family members to get involved.
Sam Moxham, Chief People Officer, Progeny, said:
“In our response to the pandemic we put our people front and centre. Through keeping everyone connected we created a whole new community and brought the business together in new and refreshing ways, ensuring that no one was isolated or left behind. We have listened closely to all our team members through regular forums, Q&A sessions and surveys, always ready to act on their feedback. We put new structures in place to keep meeting our professional responsibilities and created a social scene where fun and feeling good were the top targets.
“Onboarding new team members through a pandemic was a challenge but it has been one of the biggest success stories of the past 12 months. When recruiting and welcoming new staff, we pride ourselves on considering the whole person, broadening our focus from just their technical ability or what they can bring to the role, to who they are as people. The Progeny People Index is a great round up of the businesses activity over the past year.”
Neil Moles, CEO, Progeny, said:
“Right at the beginning of the pandemic we made a firm commitment to our team not to furlough anyone or make any of our team members redundant. In fact, we took on more staff and increased our headcount so we could support our clients better and be ready to emerge with a firm that was ready to keep on growing when the pandemic was over. As the applications and candidate count show, people want to join us and we’re attracting talented team members who want to make a real contribution.
“Crucially, we have invested significant amounts of time, effort and resource into supporting our team members at all levels during this unprecedented year, refusing to let the pandemic stand in the way of their professional and personal progress.”
To find out more about working at Progeny and to view our current vacancies, check out our Careers Page.
