The team at Lindsay & Gilmour were delighted to fight off fierce UK-wide competition to win an award recognising the exceptional employee benefits we provide for our employees – the people who are at the heart of everything we do.

Facing competition from some major national and international businesses, we were thrilled to win the award for Best Benefits Communications at The Employee Benefits Awards 2021. The honour recognises our effective and innovative approach to benefits communications, using recognition and reward to double our employee engagement.

It is always fantastic to receive an award for any aspect of the service we provide as Scotland’s oldest independent community pharmacy group. However, I am especially proud to accept this award on behalf of our team.

By Philip Galt, MD and Superintendent Pharmacist, Lindsay & Gilmour

As one of the few healthcare providers that remained truly open during the pandemic our staff faced significant pressures due to increased workload coupled with challenging working conditions. Staff absence levels increased in the early stages of the pandemic due to the impact of self-isolation rules with some staff contracting COVID-19. Staff absences placed further pressure on our teams as they struggled to manage the workload with reduced resources. We were acutely aware that working under such conditions for an extended period was likely to have an impact on staff physical health and well-being but also on their mental health.

We wanted to implement a system where we could provide support to our teams that would address these key concerns. Furthermore, we were keen to also recognise and reward our staff for the commitment, dedication and hard work they have and continue to display. Central to this was ensuring that these benefits were communicated to all staff, raising awareness of the support that was made available to them.

Heartfelt High 5s

We selected Vivup High5 as our solution as it provided the most synergistic approach with our other benefits. We shifted to a fully digital set of comms to ensure we reached all our widely dispersed workforce. Employees were able to access both Vivup High5 and their wider benefits either at work or from home.

To help digitise our comms approach, we launched the Vivup High5 reward and recognition solution. The timing was ideal as it enabled us to reward our people during the Christmas period as all our normal festive activities were cancelled. We also looked at new digital ways to raise awareness of our wider benefits offering.

Working alongside our benefits partner Vivup, we found that the digital app-based solution offered by Vivup High5 was transformative. Implemented easily, it facilitated manager to employee recognition and reward plus peer-to-peer recognition and gave our 'thank you' culture a huge boost at a time when it was needed. Utilising the app to reward our team was a brand-new initiative for us and it worked perfectly. It enabled us to give back to our incredibly hard-working staff during an unprecedented time and saw fantastic uptake.

As a result of introducing this solution:

• 71% (250) employees have activated their Vivup High5 app
• Our employees have sent 666 High5s since launch
• We have been delighted to issue £8,647 in rewards so far

Not just for Christmas

Our recognition and reward solution wasn’t just for Christmas, we worked hard with the team at Vivup to introduce ongoing strategies such as ‘Star of the Month’ to ensure our people’s usage of Vivup High5 throughout the year was high. By aligning our key values with our recognition, we also ensured our brand and culture was front of mind with our people.

We are hiring!

Are you interested in a career with an award-winning community pharmacy group? We would love to hear from you! Please take a look at the career opportunities currently on offer at Lindsay & Gilmour here. We look forward to welcoming you to the team.