How is the new normal shaping the future of Human Resources?

"Human Resources isn’t a thing we do. It’s the thing that runs our business."
Steve Wynn

Many companies say they care about their employees, but more than just saying this, what do companies really do for their employees? How has the COVID pandemic changed the way we look after our staff, not just with regards to their work, but their emotional mental and physical wellbeing?

With many of Claremont’s expert Oracle consultants dispersed across the United Kingdom, Claremont has essentially been a work-from-home employer for many years. Due to the COVID pandemic, the office doors were shut and office-based employees were also moved to remote working too.

Claremont cares about its people, the HR and management teams have worked hard in the past few years to focus on the health and wellbeing of their employees. As a company, we have worked diligently to be understanding, supportive and flexible to help our employees manage their work-life balance and the pressures that were brought about by the pandemic and everyday life.

The Claremont HR team, the people behind the scenes who make it all happen

Sisko Broadey, Finance & HR Manager, and a mum of two girls, has been with Claremont for 11 years having started out in the finance and accounts team. A few years ago, she decided she wanted a change in direction, and completed a CIPD HR Management qualification and found that this was where her real passion lay. Sisko enjoys delivering different well-being activities, supporting Claremont's people, and promoting the importance of developing healthy habits.

Carol Connolly, wife and mother, is the Director of Finance & HR at Claremont and is responsible for delivering the people strategy to support Claremont’s business development and growth.

Carol loves looking after people and wants to give employees the best experience they can have. She recognises that staff have had a tough time over the past couple of years and does all that she can to improve things for them. As a Chartered Member of the CIPD, Carol is passionate about all things people and is extremely proud of Claremont’s people credentials.​​​​​​

Healthier habits for better well being

Claremont’s approach to the health and wellbeing of its employees is one of the reasons it is one of just a handful of companies in the world with an Investors In People (IIP) Platinum status. And part of this process is about finding out what employees want to see, hear, and do.

A company that listens

Claremont established a working group of employees to identify and address key issues, providing a platform to contribute ideas and thoughts about what would improve their lives at work. The HR team also provides information on common health trends, including physical fitness and health, working at home risk assessments, mental health, and musculoskeletal health as part of the wellbeing programme. Through employee feedback, the HR team has developed and implemented several initiatives to improve the overall well-being of those who work for the company.

Keeping up with the pace

One of the first health initiatives, back in 2019, was a couch to 5km running group that was started at the Guildford office. Led by avid runner and CEO Mark Vivian, people were encouraged from across the business to bring their running gear and give it a go. Rain or shine the team came together and left their desks for a run, before coming back a little exhausted, but all the better for the exercise.

One big winner from this initiative is Simon Beresford from the sales team. This is what he had to say:

“We began our running club in Guildford in January 2019 to try to get fresh air and gain a little bit of fitness.

There was no pressure to take part or to be of a certain level, even though it was led by a seasoned runner. I hadn’t run outside for more than 15 minutes since school, so this was a great way of getting into it. It was every Tuesday lunchtime and thankfully it’s continued whilst working from home during the COVID times.

It was extra useful when the gyms closed! I have gained hugely from this and now run two or three times a week, ranging from a total of between 10km to 30km across the week.”

Walking to wellness

Claremont has held several well-being weeks over the past two years, often combining physical and mental well-being. Virtual company walks have been a favourite activity, living the company value of One Team, bringing people together when they can’t be physically together, and enjoying the benefits of nature at the same time. It is a shared experience and provides time to revitalise minds and bodies, with employees and management turning off their computers during work hours and heading outdoors to embrace the theme.

These well-being weeks are designed to encourage a variety of activities such as walking, yoga, running, cycling, tennis, kite surfing, roller skating, skateboarding, or hitting the treadmill. Employees are always encouraged to share photos to keep everyone connected and inspired, and we have seen an array of beautiful scenery, coastal walks to fields, woodlands, and sunset pictures building familiarity and an understanding of our colleagues’ lives.

Many of the health and wellbeing weeks have included a component of giving back. Supporting the wider community and the causes that we are passionate about is one of our core values and an important part of Claremont’s culture. Various physical targets are set and are often surpassed, raising awareness, and resulting in financial donations to employee-chosen charities such as Mind, Macmillan Cancer, and the British Red Cross to name a few.

Love your mind, love your body

In February 2021 and in the spirit of Valentine’s Day, Claremont rolled out love your mind, love your body challenge. The message was simple - spend 14 hours doing something active and be nice to yourselves.

“When people go to work, they shouldn’t have to leave their hearts at home.”
Betty Bender

Family is a big part of who we are at Claremont. Another successful 2021 challenge, Healthy Body and Mind -Claremont 500, aimed to bring people together and encourage them to keep active and enjoy the great outdoors. The challenge for our people, their friends, and family was to collectively walk, cycle or run 500 miles in the space of a week and, to make things more fun, to share their favourite nature photos, in fitting with the theme of Mental Health Awareness week. Despite busy schedules, staff and management came together with family and friends and completed an impressive 823 miles, raising £720 for the mental health charity MIND in the process.

Some of the views from the walks.

Mental health awareness – It’s okay to talk

Mental health has had a continued focus in 2022, and in February, to signpost ‘Time to Talk Day’, Sisko invited Neil Waine to introduce Andy’s Man Club to the Claremont team.

Suicide is the leading cause of death for men under 50 in the UK and Andy’s Man Club is a men’s mental health charity – offering free-to-attend talking groups for men whilst challenging the stigma around male mental health.

Carol mentioned how successful this session was to her husband, a senior manager at Ernst & Young, who picked it up and introduced it to the EY team, helping raise and spread awareness across yet another organisation.

Claremont supports the Andy’s Man Club philosophy of “it’s okay to talk”, and with the switch to working from home during the pandemic, the challenge was how to help people open up about something other than work. Loneliness and feelings of isolation were widely reported concerns during the pandemic, and supporting employees to manage their well-being in difficult times was a top priority for the HR team. Claremont introduced an informal buddy system, another suggestion from the employee working group. The idea was to discuss everyday moments, issues, frustrations and celebrations with a work buddy that you might not normally speak to. It was encouraged by the business by allowing employees to have a chat during business hours via Teams with no guilt.

Such honest and open dialogues with staff are not restricted to employees. In fact, the co-founder of Claremont, Richard McInnes-Manby, has openly shared his family’s personal experience with mental health. He believes that “acknowledging mental health and being open and honest about it as a society is very important, as well as supporting those that are affected by it.”

Looking after yourself

Physical health focus took a different direction when we explored Musculoskeletal health and considered good practices to help our joints and bones work well together without pain.

As such, employees were sent information on the positive impact regular exercise and healthy daily routines can have on our musculoskeletal health and considered how nutrition and diet impact our orthopaedic health too. In addition to considering a healthy workstation setup, a video of simple desk-based exercises was shared with all to encourage everyone to keep their bodies moving in order to reduce the risk of muscle or joint pain, which was also accompanied by a Pilates video. We followed this up later with an actual desk-based exercise session on our next company update call, run by our Head of Marketing.

Public health surveys reported that alcohol intake increased during the lockdowns, and ‘Think before you drink’ and ‘Rethink Your Drink’ were topics shared, to encourage our people to reflect on their drinking habits honestly and consider making changes or seeking support if there was a cause for concern.

Our Wellbeing Check-In Surveys have revealed that healthy eating continues to be ranked as a top 3 topic among staff. We have explored how food impacts our mental health, shared information on healthy eating ideas & recipes, looked at ways to keep to a healthy weight and how our lifestyle choices, what we eat and drink and whether we smoke, impact our dental health.

Recognising April as national 'Stress Awareness Month’, each week we considered different everyday actions that we can carry out for the benefit of our physical, mental and emotional wellbeing. An email was sent out signposting ‘A guide to coping with stress’ from the Stress Management Society, which supplied tips on healthy routines that can be adopted to reduce stress. Employees were also offered access to online Resilience and Stress Awareness training and were sent a copy of a Stress Risk Self-Assessment form, intended to help individuals identify potential stress triggers.

One of the current topics of focus is promoting the importance of health checks. We recognise that our lifestyles are a factor in determining how healthy we are and, even if we feel well, it doesn’t always mean that we’re not at risk of some lifestyle diseases. We have highlighted how regular check-ups can identify health risks early on before they’ve had time to cause a problem, and signposted how our people can access support resources.

Sustainability and community – doing good things makes us feel good

In all that Claremont does, there is an element of giving back to our community.

Raising awareness of men’s health is one of the well-being topics that Claremont has supported. As well as raising awareness of prostate and testicular cancer, we also highlight mental health and suicide prevention in men. In support of this topic, Claremont invited employees to take part in the Movember challenge, to run or walk 60km in November in recognition of those who are lost to suicide. Many staff members completed the challenge despite the terrible November weather, raising £150 for Movember Europe to help with their important work.

"People rarely succeed unless they have fun in what they are doing" 
Dale Carnegie

The challenge for Claremont over the past two years has been how to ensure that there is a sense of fun in the organisation, even when we were unable to come together.

During the pandemic, the company had to postpone its annual away days, a chance for all employees to get together, catch up and enjoy fun team-building activities. In the absence of a physical event, a virtual event was organised consisting of an online escape room and cocktail-making experience - a fun afternoon and evening with lots of laughter.

Virtual company quizzes have been a welcome opportunity to socialise and have fun together as a team for the past two years. During Claremont’s Values’ wellbeing week, each member of staff was sent beers from a carbon-neutral brewery, BREWDOG, tying in with the theme of social responsibility and sustainability.

This year, Claremont has reintroduced its popular pop-up offices, providing an opportunity for our people to come together, collaborate, and strengthen personal ties.

Happiness is … receiving a gift on an ordinary day

Claremont shows their appreciation to their people, by occasionally sending surprise gifts, to thank them for their great work.

The first of the gift boxes arrived on people’s doorsteps during the start of the pandemic, including treats, face masks, hand sanitisers, and branded phone cases.

Another such gift included a Decathlon voucher and Claremont branded water bottle, to tie in with a physical health focus during one of the wellbeing weeks. The Decathlon voucher gave people an opportunity to purchase sports equipment, tents, or camping chairs making the gift versatile and offering a wide range of products to meet everyone’s needs, no matter their lifestyle or activity level.

With the annual Christmas party being cancelled due to COVID and social distancing, Claremont opted to thank employees for their hard work by offering a choice of a gift voucher, taking their families out to dinner and celebrating on behalf of Claremont, or making a charitable donation to a charity of their choice. It was a thank you in recognition of Claremont employees' families for supporting them in working so hard during the pandemic and acknowledging the important part that family plays in the Claremont community.

Recognising that everyone’s idea of wellbeing is different, Claremont regularly runs anonymous Wellbeing Surveys, asking employees about their thoughts on the wellbeing activities from the programme, what changes or improvements they would like to see, and what topics are important to them.

Awards

Thanks to all these great HR and management initiatives, staff rewarded Claremont with a world-class independently verified Employee Net Promoter Score of 93%, much higher than the world-class rate of 75%.

Our broad-ranging health and wellbeing activities have also been recognised externally, in the form of the Better Health at Work Silver award. We have also held Investors in People accreditation since 2011 and were delighted to be awarded the Platinum standard in 2020, the highest accreditation which is awarded to only the top 2% of the companies that IIP assesses.

Other recent external awards recognising Claremont’s people initiatives include CIPD NE awards for Excellence in Leadership and Excellence in SME People Practice and an industry award in the form of the MSP Innovation Awards Europe award for Best Employer to Work For.

Whilst external awards and accreditations are fantastic achievements, by far the most important feedback we can receive is that of our own people. Claremont has just seen its two best years of business, proving that employees who are happy and well-cared-for perform best.

Claremont has run so many great health and wellbeing initiatives that it was impossible to mention them all. If you are in HR and looking for inspiration, please feel free to reach out to Sisko or Carol.

If you want to join a great company that doesn’t just pay lip service to look after its people, why not check out our careers page for available positions.

Choosing the right Managed Services Provider

If you are looking for an Oracle Managed Services Provider that cares as much about its clients as it does about our employees and can back up the talk, then contact us.

And if you would like to find out more about Claremont or have a question, you can email us at info@claremont.co.uk or phone us on +44 (0) 1483 549004.