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To recognise Carers Week last week, XPS's Disability and Neurodiversity Network encouraged open discussions and created a place for carers within our community to support each other. We all have a role to play in raising awareness of caring and making sure carers within our community are able to access the information and support they need. Carers Week is an annual campaign to raise awareness of caring, highlight the challenges faced by unpaid carers and recognise the contributions they make.
XPS Pensions Group hosted our first Learning at Work Week last month. In honour of this year’s theme, ‘Create the Future’, we curated a selection of resources and activities that encouraged both personal and professional development. The highlight of the week was the 'Mindfulness Matters' session, hosted by Shelley Owens, Therapeutic and Well-being Practitioner with Just SO Well-being Services. Shelley guided participants through positive well-being strategies.
We are delighted to be named as one of The Sunday Times’s Best Places to Work 2023. XPS Pensions Group has been recognised among the best ‘big’ companies to work for in the annual list published by The Sunday Times. The nationwide survey celebrates Britain’s top employers and monitors employee engagement and wellbeing, as well as tracks the best places to work for women, members of the LGBTQIA+ community, disabled employees, ethnic minorities and younger and older workers.
XPS Pensions Group has won three awards at Professional Pensions’ UK Pensions Awards on 1st June 2023, taking home Third-Party Administrator of the Year, Fiduciary Evaluator of the Year and the Diversity and Inclusion Excellence Award.
Cerys recently returned to work from a 4-month sabbatical, see below for an exciting update about her return.
Not afraid of a bit of mud, a team of volunteers from the XPS family joined TCV in Reading to lend a hand with their vital conservation work at Clayfield Copse. The team got stuck in with coppicing, invasive specie intervention, natural barrier construction and general woodland maintenance. One such volunteer, Becky Purcell, said, "It was great to look back on the day and see what we were able to achieve in such a small amount of time and appreciate that if more people were to get involved with these types of activities then so much more could be achieved. The organisers seemed to really appreciate all our contributions which made for a positive experience all round." Along with our purpose, mission and vision, you can find out more about why being a responsible business has always been imporatant to us on the XPS Pensions Group website.
We know that talking about our mental health can be difficult, but we also know that the more of these conversations we have, the easier they become. This is why we're happy to be taking part in the nation's biggest mental health conversation on #timetotalk day and always encourage our employees to reach out to a member of the XPS Mental Health Allies Network.
As we come to the end of January, we’d like to reflect on some of the achievements we’ve made and the changes we’ve experienced in the last twelve months, starting with our new Values posters. At the heart of everything we do, we have five core values at XPS – We are ‘Ambitious’, ‘Expert’, ‘Agile’, ‘Helpful’, and ‘We Do the Right Thing’. We even have our own Values In Practice Awards, which take place annually, and recognise colleagues for living these values in the work that they do. So, in the spirit of nurturing a culture of belonging within XPS, we re-branded our Values posters last year to reflect the rich diversity within XPS and represent the boldness of our business.
The XPS Multicultural Network and colleagues have been sharing the gift of kindness, discovering which foods are lucky and learning more about their zodiac animals in celebration of Chinese New Year. On behalf of everyone at XPS Pensions, we would like to wish everyone a prosperous year in the Year of the Rabbit.
XPS Blue / Brew Monday Webinar The XPS Mental Health Allies Network would like to thank Mental Health at Work, for giving XPS colleagues the opportunity on Wednesday to change the conversation around ‘Blue Mondays’, discuss how to encourage empathy and openness with team members, whilst learning more about some common myths when it comes to understanding depression or mental illness.
