Working at Hg

Health & Wellbeing

At Hg, we believe that healthy individuals are the key to a healthy organisation. Supporting our staff’s physical and mental health has become even more vital over the past 12 months as we navigate the global pandemic and its impact on our lives. Research from the Mental Health Foundation shows that anxiety, depression and stress are at record levels, while the Centre for Mental Health has calculated that better mental health support in the workplace can save UK businesses up to £8 billion per year. Throughout the past twelve months Hg has increased the health and well-being services we provide.

Hg has continued to ensure that our employees have access to medical support through our GP network or through the Babylon app, giving people round the clock access to medical professionals as well as annual medical and eye check-ups. We have launched yoga classes and encouraged teams to join various exercise initiatives in support of charities such as Row the Thames. We continue to operate our cycle to work scheme and ClassPass membership packages, providing discounted work outs for our employees to help them stay fit in a way that suits them even when gyms are closed due to Covid restrictions. We have recently launched a menopause planning service for women of all ages. This gives women access to a GP trained in the full menopause experience who can provide advice and an action plan to help with.

Hg is acutely aware of the damaging impact increased stress and anxiety can have on the individual. Hg already provided access to an independent and confidential Employee Assistance Programme, which provides a comprehensive telephone counselling service 24/7, as well as face-to-face sessions. It also offers a Wellbeing App that provides a regular newsfeed, plus access to wellbeing articles and podcasts.

And for those employees with families, Hg has partnered with an organisation to provide a variety of resources to help them flourish at home as well as work:

Over the past year we have provided training sessions on building and improving resilience and managing anxiety in addition to sessions on good nutrition and improving sleep quality. To supplement these sessions Hg also launched free access for all employees to Headspace, the most science-backed meditation app in the world. Crucially we have worked to ensure regular social interactions are in place, albeit in a virtual world.

We are increasing the number of trained Mental Health First Aiders we have within the Firm and have launched improved family Support provisions, including access to 10 free days child-care support each year, as well as holiday activity sessions and children’s clubs in addition to providing independent elder care advice and support on any care issue and all types of care, from post-operative convalescent care, to planning ahead for later life care.

A knowledge centre

An online library of guides on work and family topics plus one-to-one advice.

Back Up Care

Access to emergency back-up childcare when usual arrangements break down.

Parental Leave Toolkit Access

A digital coaching toolkit for new parents and the managers who support them.

Supporting parents during lockdown

Hg Parents Group was launched as a forum to share top tips on home schooling etc.

Blogs, Insider Guides and Webinars

Advice covering everything from mindfulness for kids to choosing schools.

Great place to work

What is it? The Great Place to Work is an independent workplace assessment survey providing insight into how employees view company culture. We conduct the survey every two years at Hg and it measures perception of….

Values & ethics

Communication & involvement

Teamwork

Recognition

Empowerment & accountability

0%

of Hg employees think “This is a Great Place to Work”

In 2019, 86% of Hg employees said that ‘This is a Great Place to Work’. In 2021, our pulse survey shows this has increased to 90%.

Supporting our colleagues during the Covid-19 pandemic

When Covid-19 turned the world upside down in March 2020 Hg moved fast to protect our employees’ health and provide them with the best possible set up at home. This included shipping out equipment to homes and introducing an allowance for home office essentials such as desks and chairs. We quickly moved to a flexible working approach, which became even more relevant as schools closed and many of our colleagues had to balance work with home schooling.

The transition to remote working for our ~230 employees went very well:

Internal comms

Regular All Staff emails with business and operational updates from day one – and we have continued to do this very regularly.

Communication tools

Roll out of key communication tools Microsoft Teams and Zoom across the firm was very timely, with last team being migrated on to Teams two weeks prior to lockdown.

Manager check-ins

Managers are asked to check in with each team member on a weekly basis as an absolute minimum but in most cases, this is much more regular.

Hg Virtual Learning Programme

Launched to encourage continued learning as well as promotion of wellbeing topics: a schedule of externally hosted webinars and internally hosted “teach ins” and trainings across a variety of topics.

Team check-ins

Managing a sense of community has been very important in uncertain times and we regularly remind and encourage all employees to informally reach out to and check in on their colleagues (e.g. informal coffee breaks via Teams VC).

All staff calls

We introduced a weekly All Staff “End of Week Call”, which is a VC call hosted by a different partner each week with the wider Firm helping to run different slots to encourage broader engagement. The calls take part on Friday afternoons to wrap up the week and send people into the weekend engaged and informed. The all staff calls will continue to run bi-weekly even after the pandemic.

Virtual Coffee Roulette

Every two months our colleagues are randomly assigned a “coffee match” with a colleague which we look to continue in person going forward.

Working from anywhere

Covid-19 has made us realise that you do not have to be visible in the office to deliver strong outcomes. We have surveyed our employees to get their view on future ways of working and as a result, we have introduced our ‘Working from Anywhere’ policy, which will allow for more flexible working practices. In preparation for the return to the office, we have re-designed our offices to allow for more collaborative and meeting spaces.