Hair and beauty brand Cloud Nine uses its reward strategy to celebrate a culture of success by making it clear that everyone’s achievements are to be celebrated, whether they are personal or work related.
The organisation, which employs 65 workers at its Yorkshire headquarters and sells products all over the world, recognises an individual employee who has exceeded expectations and gone above and beyond each quarter. Staff vote for other department members and the person who wins employee of the quarter receives a £100 voucher as part of a celebration of them and their success. All achievements are shared in an internal newsletter across the business.
Every individual’s work successes contribute to the success of the business in various different ways, explains Beth Daley, human resources business partner at Cloud Nine.
“This includes viral TikToks created by our social media executives that increase our brand exposure, and the outstanding customer experience we provide to personally support our customers in getting to know our products, reducing potential returns rates and improving the value of our products,” she says. “Recently, we championed our team members, Eleanor and Liv, who completed the Leeds half marathon, and our office administrator, Bronwen Newton, who achieved her Level 3 CIPD diploma.”
Cloud Nine has trained employees to become mental health first aiders and also offers life insurance, provided by Zurich, and a health cash plan, provided by Health Shield to help with dental and other health bills. Senior leadership tries to make sure Cloud Nine is a fun place to work for all of its employees by hosting bake-off competitions, offering free hot drinks to brighten up Blue Monday, and surprise desk drops and goodie bags to mark Random Acts of Kindness Day.
As a result of an internal survey, the brand invested in communication, pay, wellbeing, giving back and personal development, and in follow-up surveys has seen a significantly higher engagement score. Line managers are encouraged to regularly check in with employees to support with development, work on objectives, discuss ambitions and share feedback on staff progression. Its culture and approach has led to industry recognition, as it was named on the Sunday Times Best Places to Work list in 2023 due to its employee engagement and people strategy.
By investing in wellbeing, reward schemes, pay, fundraising and other internal initiatives, there have been improvements to the quality of talent the business can recruit and staff retention levels, Daley says.
“We are proud of how our team has worked together on initiatives and how it has influenced our culture overall. Over the last few years, we’ve been putting all our energy into progressing Cloud Nine to be the best place to work. We recently created a brand story document for all employees to embed our values, along with an onboarding pack for new starters. Workplace culture is about creating an environment where employees feel challenged and motivated to play a part in success,” she concludes.
