People Over Profits | Supporting our Employees through the Pandemic

Our people are the lifeblood of our business

and we are always looking at ways in which we can support them, particularly during these difficult times. We know that people are struggling to juggle work with family commitments and home schooling, so a few ways in which we have tried to make the lives of our people easier include:

• Offering everyone the option of changing their core hours to enable them to work around family and childcare commitments.
• Allowing them to take some time out during the day to do something to support their mental well-being.
• Offering two hours off a week to go shopping to support a vulnerable relative, friend, or neighbor.

In addition, we are offering additional support to those shielding or with childcare and caring responsibilities. We also gave all employees who worked consistently through the pandemic an extra five days of holiday last year to be used until the end of 2021.

A Shift Towards More Compassionate Leadership

It would seem that we are not alone in this thought process. A new report called "Future Trends in Leadership & Management – shifting priorities" found that over the next five to ten years, a shift towards more compassionate leadership will continue to emerge.

Perhaps less surprisingly, this is already apparent in the third sector, where 34% of leaders say they already put people as their number one priority. However, right now, this more compassionate approach is less common in private and public sector organizations, where only 16% and 11% of leaders say they put their people before their profits.

In the next decade, the research reveals that 28% of third sector organizations and 20% of private sector businesses expect the biggest focus within their organization to be valuing their staff. This is also similar in SMEs, with 27% of small and 20% of medium-sized enterprises predicting this will occur – the second-highest future priority for these organizations.

This is what our employees have to say!