Behind every great company is a great team, and utilities group Everflow is no exception.
Here, Head of Talent Leeanne Hedley explains what they look for in a team member, how they nurture their employees and the benefits such an approach has for all. When I started as Head of Talent a year ago, I soon realised how great the Everflow Group is as an employer, and how successfully it has managed to create and maintain such a fantastic culture. Everyone is united in the group vision to ‘make water simple’, whether they work in software development or customer operations – and it shows in the group’s success.
Josh (Gill, Everflow founder and CEO) has always made it his mission to create a workplace everyone enjoys coming to, and he’s definitely done that – our employee net promoter score (a metric to assess employee satisfaction) currently stands at +77, where anything over 60 is seen as outstanding. A great place to work Everflow’s approach is simple; it values each employee and their opinions, and recognises that they need to enjoy their job to be good at it.
Our team work hard and play hard; we put a great deal of emphasis on fun and employee wellbeing, with regular social events and monthly breakfasts at our Wynyard HQ (when they were allowed). There’s reward and recognition, cycle to work, mobile and tech salary sacrifice schemes in place that help support the team in their personal and professional goals. During Covid, our focus on wellbeing was more poignant than ever, and we worked with the team to make sure everyone was safe and supported, granting employees a monthly allowance to cover their bills while working from home and setting up an employee loan facility. We know that during uncertain times, finances are one of the main causes of adverse mental health and we believe employers have a duty of care to their team’s wellbeing in relation to work. We’re delighted that, despite all the upheaval the pandemic brought, we maintained our employee net promotor score of +77 – which goes to show just how valued our employees feel.
One of our values is ‘teamwork makes the dream work’, and it’s well and truly lived out at Everflow. Individuals and teams go the extra mile to help each other and in turn, help customers. They say variety is the spice of life, and our team really proves that. There’s no particular Everflow ‘type’ – the main thing we look for is people who share our values – and so we have a real mix across all ages, sexes and backgrounds. I think that’s part of why we work so well as a team; everyone brings their own skills and knowledge to the table to create something truly magical – and we wouldn’t have it any other way. A great place to learn Another of the great things about being a relatively new company (we celebrated our 5th birthday last year) is that there’s always room to grow as the team expands and roles diversify. This element of personal development is extremely important to Everflow; one of my priorities is to upskill our existing staff, and to support them in training where it suits their job role. There are opportunities for anyone who wants them, and we love to see our team gain knowledge, skills and confidence along the way. This approach isn’t restricted to existing employees though; since I started, I’ve had lots of young people enquire about roles, so we’ve started hiring apprentices and we developed the Everflow Academy to provide them and others with a route into roles across the group. At the moment, we have two apprentices working in the group; one IT apprentice who has come through QA Apprentices, and a business administration apprentice from Learning Curve. Young people are great at bringing new, fresh eyes and ideas into a business. They offer a different perspective and are keen to learn new skills. Similarly, the Everflow Academy provides ambitious individuals with great opportunities to learn. It’s a simple, innovative onboarding programme which allows candidates to work in each department, as well as benefitting from a tailored training plan to support their development. And, unlike some firms, we don’t ask for a wealth of previous experience to be eligible, as the whole point of the programme is to impart that vital trade knowledge.
Such an approach once again supports our vision of a well-rounded team. We believe every member, no matter how experienced or otherwise, has a voice to be heard – and we’re always listening.
