Posted: 26 / 02 / 2018

And the company are looking to build on their Wellbeing and development innitiatives in 2018.

The importance of workplace culture is vital to any well-performing company and Sedulo are showing their commitment to this with the appointment of Head of People and Culture, Sarah Wetherell.

After joining the company at the beginning of 2017, the previously known Head of HR set her sights on developing the growing company’s culture and initiatives around training and wellbeing, and 12 months later the progress has been recognised in both results and a switch in job title and department title.

Of the development, Sedulo Managing Partner, Paul Cheetham, said: “Developing our team members is something we’ve always tried to promote since starting up around 9 years ago.

“But as the team grew we became increasingly aware that it was something we needed to dedicate more time and resources to in order to do effectively, and due to the hard work of Sarah and our senior management team that’s something we’re proud to say we’ve made some real steps with in 2017.”

Structured personal development plans were provided for all team members across the year, and a tailored wellbeing programme was also
successfully launched with the company so far having received a number of seminars advising on fitness, nutrition, as well as personal topics such as stress and anxiety management.

Feedback from the Sedulo team on the efforts being made have been hugely positive, with the company recording a marked improvement in results during the annual team survey – held towards the end of every year to gauge happiness across the board, as well as identify areas needed for development.

Providing the tools to tackle such issues is of great importance to Sarah, and is something she believes benefits the team greatly as a whole.
Commenting on this, as well as her newly appointed role, Sarah said: “When I first joined we identified where we were as a business in terms of offering the team a bit more than just a payslip at the end of the month.

“We appreciate the work each team member puts into helping and growing Sedulo, so using the HR position to help and reward them throughout the year was something we were really keen to do.

“We quickly realised that the goal for my role was always going to be more than just standard HR responsibilities

“It became more of a development tool for our people and our culture, so having a formal recognition of that with the change in title is something which I’m immensely proud of.”

As well as the new title, Sedulo received an accreditation from the external awarding body Investors in People, recognising the progress the firm had made throughout the year with their commitment to the team.

Categories in particular that the business scored well on included the likes of living company values and behaviours, building capabilities of individuals within the team as well as managing and recognising hard work and performance, and achieving the next level of Investors in People is something the Sedulo leadership team are already setting their sights on over the next few years.

On top of the development tools, efforts in recognising hard work and providing perks for team members also helped to cement the the much-coveted recognition from Investors in People.

Initiatives such as providing free breakfast and afternoon teas, a bi-monthly team newspaper, running annual team happiness surveys, as well as providing benefits through the 3rd party supplier, Perkbox, were just a few more factors on Sarah’s list to keep the team happy and healthy.

“During my first few weeks I quickly learned that building relationships and working together at all levels of the business was a key focus for Sedulo”, Sarah said.

“2017 was about formalising that, and 2018 will be about continuing this work as well as taking it across multiple cities with our new Leeds office about to open in April.

“We’re already on the lookout for the next member of the People and Culture team – someone to help us to continue to deliver culturally what we promised ourselves we’d do when Sedulo first began back in 2009 – so this year should be a really exciting one for me personally as well as for our team.”

Recruiting for the second member of the newly annointed People and Culture team is already well under-way, and the eventual appointment will signify the ongoing development of all of the initiatives for both Manchester and Leeds-based teams.

These developments will include the relaunch of the popular team forum, as well as refinements being applied to the strategies behind training and recruitment.