Ten. Ten times and 10 awards. That’s our terrific record for nominations as A Great Place To Work. Which is just fantastic news, a recognition made more welcome by COVID disrupting our normal working lives with lockdowns, the working from home, and the not seeing colleagues.
Never mind, Fleet Alliance continues to be a great place to work. We’ve just been listed once more in the UK’s Best Places to Work in the largest category by entrants for medium sized businesses (51-250 employees).
So how does this work? Central to our ranking in The UK’s Best Places to Work is a Trust Audit and a Culture Audit run by the Great Place to Work Institute. A survey of all staff explores the employee experience at work and also aims to understand the standards and company ethos that underpins the working practice at Fleet Alliance. It’s fully independent.
Most staff were based at home during 2021 making it especially challenging to sustain staff wellbeing against a challenging business climate where demand for vehicle leasing was high but the semiconductor shortage put a strain on vehicle availability.
And many of our staff benefits have simply not been available thanks to absence from the office. But with effective communications, trusting our staff to maintain high standards under difficult working conditions – bedrooms and kitchens, for example – and constant attention to staff wellbeing have all helped create a better employee experience, even under these trying conditions.
But central to why I think Fleet Alliance is such a good place to work is because it’s all underpinned by the ‘Fleet Alliance Loves’ programme. This is the bedrock, the very core of the Fleet Alliance working environment. And it’s based on these four pillars:
It not only provides a framework for employee behaviour – happy, fun, inclusive – it encourages staff to look beyond their working environment and consider their place within a wider social context, particularly those who are more disadvantaged. Fundraising and charity involvement is a special part of the team ethos and I was particularly pleased to see staff raise over £5,000 for our annual Festive Support Fund over Christmas, with donations going to the Glasgow NE Foodbank, Glasgow NW Foodbank, FareShare Sussex and Sussex Nightstop.
The Christmas charity support is just part of a phenomenal £667,000 the Fleet Alliance team has raised as part of the Fleet Alliance Loves programme, which is a great credit to all the company’s employees.
With the worst of the pandemic out of the way – please let it be so – I hope we can return to the office environment we all enjoyed and valued so much before COVID-19 restrictions became such a constricting part of our everyday lives.
We’ll certainly be making extra efforts to welcome our staff back, including the addition of some hybrid working, to continue being a brilliant place to work.
Ten. Ten times and 10 awards. That’s our terrific record for nominations as A Great Place To Work. Which is just fantastic news, a recognition made more welcome by COVID disrupting our normal working lives with lockdowns, the working from home, and the not seeing colleagues. Never mind, Fleet Alliance continues to be a great place … Continued
There are a number of important motor shows that take place around the world. Admittedly, the world pandemic has made some more intermittent than others, but an event that has quickly become an important fixture on the automotive calendar is not focused on cars at all. It’s all about technology: the Consumer Electronics Show (or … Continued
Let’s start with some good, green stats. According to the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT), September and October battery electric vehicle (BEV) sales accounted for more than 15% of the total UK car market. In Europe, a recent analysis by Schmidt Automotive Research revealed that during the first 10 months of 2021, one … Continued
There have been precious few big motor shows over the past year and a half or so, but the Los Angeles Auto Show 2021 has managed to pack out the stands. Sadly I wasn’t there myself to see them first hand, but as a self-confessed car enthusiast, I’ve highlighted the models that really caught my … Continued
From my vantage point at Fleet Alliance, looking down from my (relatively new) office surroundings onto the climate conference hosted in Glasgow at the SEC, I’ve been watching the comings and goings and I can’t help reflect that there have been a lot of cars, most of which are unlikely to be electric or even … Continued
It was hugely encouraging to see that the Government remains unswerving in its commitment to a net zero future. With the COP26 climate conference arriving at ground rush speed, the UK needs to demonstrate its leadership in decarbonising everything, whether that’s transport, homes and, of course, vehicles. It was also a strong message for investors … Continued
Fleet Alliance is saddened to announce the sudden death of Rod Hallworth, managing director of long-established and hugely respected broker Anthony K. Anthony K had recently become an Appointed Representative of Fleet Alliance, cementing a close relationship that stretched back over 20 years of trading as a Fleet Alliance Partner. With founder Tony Nugent stepping … Continued
What’s your key takeaway from the pandemic? What has changed significantly in your life as a result of COVID-19? And what’s altered in the way you approach your personal and business lives? Looking back there’s the rise of flexi working which has been key to many companies riding out the pandemic. But there has also … Continued
In my last blog – Green – what does it mean? – I talked about the issue of mobility and how it will relate to fleets in the future. Over in Germany, there’s been an exhibition examining just that. Called IAA Mobility 2021, it was based in Munich and featured everything from the latest in … Continued
Good news. We’ve been shortlisted in the Green Initiative Award, run by trade title BusinessCar. It’s the first time we have entered the award, so getting on the shortlist is terrific. Step one completed, then; step two – winning, against some stiff opposition – might be more difficult, of course… So I’m very pleased, but … Continued