Aardman believes all of the standards make good business sense as well as supporting employee engagement

As an organisation founded on its people, we've always strived to be a good employer and many policies such as paying the real living wage, secure work, recruitment, development and flexibility have been in place for some time. However, since becoming employee owned in 2018, with employee voice at its core, coupled with changes in working practices during the pandemic, we have expanded more into the areas of engagement and voice and health & wellbeing.

In an increasingly competitive talent market, we needed to demonstrate stand out cultural and employment practices in order to attract and retain our talent. All of the standards make good business sense as well as supporting employee engagement. It really helped that our Exec Board all felt the same way about this too!

The charter and support network can help other businesses by sharing success stories, providing useful tools and frameworks (especially for those without an HR function) and facilitating open conversation with other businesses who have either been through or are going through the journey, in order to share successes and learnings.

Having happier, more engaged employees is always good for any business and we know there are direct links to productivity as a result. Enabling open conversations and listening to employee feedback, especially in times of change, has been a game changer for us.

We've been through a fair bit of change in recent years and getting feedback throughout the process and being willing to adapt the approach has led to higher levels of stakeholder engagement – it's far easier to take people on the change journey with you! It's also opened up channels of communications between different levels in the organisation and has really helped with gaining trust.

We've done a fair bit of work around mental health and wellbeing (especially during the pandemic where many people have felt more isolated) and have a number of fully-trained mental health first aiders as well as offering mental health first training to anyone who wants it.

It's helped to have regular dialogue around this subject given (the film industry) being a highly freelance workforce, people have historically been wary of being open about mental health/wellbeing for fear it could jeopardise future employment prospects. Fair recruitment practices which are free of bias open up wider talent pools and support a more diverse workforce which again, is good for business.

At macro level: shoring the West of England as a destination employment hub, attracting talent, investment and opportunity to the area.

It can feel like a big job to get started, but I'll bet many employers already have the bones of the standards in place, so those just need to grow. Get employees involved, set up taskforce groups and really listen to what employees are saying – take good ideas on board and be prepared to change or adapt as result.

Explain the company finances to people so they can understand the financial context in which the organisation operates and give line managers the tools and skills to have those 1-to-1 conversations with team members around development, pay etc.