February 2020

February was a month of celebration for #TeamPelican as we were officially announced as the 19th best company to work for in the UK at the Sunday Times Best Companies Awards in London! We were so unbelievably proud to be placed within the top 100 companies to work for, and even more so that we beat our previous placement of 20th from 2018!

Over 757 companies entered the various categories at the Best Companies awards, who were then ranked based on an extensive team member survey and the Best Companies eight factor model which measures a range of employee engagement areas such as wellbeing, leadership and personal growth. Some stand out achievements noted by award organiser Best Companies were our sustainability practises; including our ban on disposable plastic which has contributed to saving over 165k items of plastic waste since October 2018 and our weekly team huddles and regular ‘Pelican Briefs’, an opportunity to gather together every single member of our fabulous team to celebrate key achievements.

We are extremely proud of this amazing achievement which is something only made possible by our amazing team who approach everything they do with positivity, passion and hard work. We have had an incredibly busy year so far at Pelican focussing on the engagement and wellbeing of our team and have launched several new initiatives such as our Working Parent’s Network, a catalogue of family friendly policies and our Healthy Conversation initiative, a program put in place to work towards removing the taboo and promoting open and honest dialogue on various topics such menopause, body image and learning disabilities. These are run alongside our existing initiatives such as our Health and Wellbeing Charter, People’s Council, Community Involvement programme and Pride Patrol, our LGBTQ+ network.

The celebrations didn’t stop at the awards ceremony however as we celebrated #BestCompaniesDay where our 350 team members enjoyed a special lunch and recognised everything that makes our business and our people great!

Earlier this month Director of Customer Services Oliver Jerrome and Head of People Debbie Wood attended the most recent Women in Business Charter Event, representing #TeamPelican.

These quarterly events are in place to support signatories such as ourselves to achieve their aims and progress towards gender equality. During each event the group discuss one of the charter goals and this time it was goal seven; supporting women through mentoring. It was great to hear such positive feedback from the event and I look forward to implementing some brand new ideas across our business.

Finally, and in community news, a shout out to Leanne, Kayleigh, Jo, Ieuan and Sarah who recently took part in a community day gardening at a local primary school.