The staff of life

One of the things that has really impressed me about e-know.net since I started working with them a couple of years ago has been a very evident valuing of their most important asset, their staff. It's refreshing to see a company taking an inclusive, consultative approach to employee relations, and spending time and money on acknowledging and rewarding individual and collective performance. It's not just about formal schemes such as the Employee of the Month award or informal team-bonding and social get-togethers - it's about asking staff their opinions and encouraging suggestions and contributions on everything from business development to which charitable initiatives to support. Making them feel an important part of the organisation beyond their immediate job function - not rocket science exactly but a rarer occurrence than you might think, so I take my hat off to them. Most recently, they asked everyone to put forward names for their new office cum data centre. I joined in and, in a nod to the data centre's amazing eco credentials, I offered up 'The Greenhouse'. I wasn't in the least bit offended that they eventually went with Datapoint House...well, I only sulked for a couple of days. I suspect they were worried that they might have people turning up in search of hardy annuals only to find a flowering managed service provider in residence instead.