We’re Engaged!

‘We’re engaged!’; two words accompanied by a groan and eye roll whilst your wife lets out a shriek and the ‘girls’ WhatsApp chat goes wild with excitement and ridiculous giggles that you haven’t heard since your school days! And I’ll stop there; thankfully this is not a blog about putting-a-ring-on-it! Why are more of us not exclaiming ‘we’re engaged’ when it comes to our work lives. Being engaged with your job has so many benefits and I’m not talking about the benefit of lining your boss’s pocket. Worker engagement has huge advantages in terms of positive health and safety climates, employees feeling valued, improving productivity and generally building a happier culture in the workplace. Engagement is different from being ‘involved’ in your organisation. Being involved is often more of a surface-level process; going through the motions of company procedures without having a real vested interest in the firm. For example, telling an employee to report an incident, won’t necessarily mean they care about health and safety, the business or its goals. Worker engagement is far deeper and becomes embedded in thoughts/feelings/behaviour that align with your personal values and attitude. An engaged worker will look proactively for things they can do to support the business where as an involved worker may just use formal procedures as and when they need too (they won’t go above and beyond). So go on, get yourself engaged! Read on for further tips on why worker engagement is beneficial and how you can implement it in your workplace.

Giving, without all the ‘stuff’

In a world of ‘stuff’ bursting out of every cupboard and drawer, what can we give this Christmas? You’ll know from our last blog that we are endeavouring to have a more sustainable Christmas and we certainly didn’t want to be the bearers of more plastic, more gifts to squirrel away in the back of the wardrobe, more indulgence and just more ‘stuff’. However, in the spirit of Christmas we do want to make a point to thank our incredibly loyal customers both new and old and celebrate, what we hope through our machines, advice, help and support, has been a great year for you. We have decided to do something a little different in the area of gifting this year. We are donating £1500 to The Thomas Ball Children’s Cancer Charity on behalf of all of our brilliant customers. So instead of popping open yet another bottle of fizz and indulging in ‘just one more’ quality street/celebration/roses (whichever is the favourite), we hope you will agree that knowing you’ve helped to bring back a smile to a child and family who are going through a tough time is far more rewarding.