We have long recognised that our people are our most important asset and we make significant investment to assure their continued professional, managerial and personal development. We employ a range of professionals to enable us to be able to provide a truly integrated service. Our professional skills include quantity surveyors, project managers, CDM co-ordinators, building surveyors, risk managers, sustainability advisors, lawyers, structural engineers, designers and architects.

Training and Development

We endeavour to be the employer of choice, investing 2% of each year’s turnover in the training and development of our consultants to forward their careers as far as their talent and ambition will take them. This is an area that requires constant
attention and we are committed to a policy of continually improving the opportunities available to all our people. Staff have their own plan, which addresses areas such as coaching, degree course sponsorship and personal and professional development.

Earlier this year we recruited a new training manager, who is responsible for expanding our current personal development programme. The Career Highway will focus on creating long-term career opportunities and help staff acquire and cultivate key business skills. The scheme will allow individuals to gain the expertise and experience necessary to be our leaders and managers of tomorrow.

As an international company we offer staff the opportunity to work across the UK or overseas where they will be able to advance their career by gaining global experience.

Individuality

We take an all-embracing view of helping with individual improvement including sponsorship for a wide range of professional qualifications and training
ranging from MBA, MSc, BSc, APC, and management residential courses, to internal CPD courses such as Client Management, Essential Management Skills and the five day MBA course.
Work-life balance
We believe that the ability to balance work and personal commitments is key to attracting and retaining motivated and highly skilled people. To support this, Cyril Sweett offers its staff a wide range of benefits outlined below, which are aimed at achieving a manageable balance between the demands of work and personal life.

Cyril Sweett's strong team ethos derives as much from activities outside the immediate work arena as from those within it. Social Groups are set up to arrange numerous events through the year including team dinners, murder mystery nights, greyhound racing and sailing. In addition, Cyril Sweett has 5 a-side and 11 a-side football, rugby 7s, cricket, softball and dragon boat racing teams.

Through the course of our work, Cyril Sweett plays an active part in community initiatives and supports many local charities and causes. Staff are supported and encouraged in their participation in such initiatives and Cyril Sweett has allocated a sum of money to contribute to staff community initiatives in addition to ‘match” funding some of the charitable donations made by groups of staff. We are currently piloting Business in the Community (BITC) Cares Programme in London in order to engage our staff with their communities through volunteering with a view to rolling out a full programme by the end of the year

Effective communication

In November 2006 we launched our first Annual Review, Investing in the Future, as we wanted to emphasise our commitment to improving management capability, our systems, innovative services and developing our people.

Sharing knowledge and information is key to both individual progress and competitive business advantage. We therefore place great importance on regular and interactive staff communication and achieve this through informal and formal channels, such as senior management road shows and forums. Our intranet provides daily information to staff on a wide range of issues from updated policies and procedures to current internal news announcements. In May 2006, we launched Sweett Times, our in-house magazine, which contains news about staff and our company. It is produced quarterly and distributed to all staff and highlights our CSR achievements.

Equal Opportunities and Diversity

It is the policy of the Company to achieve a diverse workforce and provide equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants. The Company does not unlawfully discriminate on the basis of sex, race, religion, colour, nationality, ethnic or national origin, marital status, disability, age, sexual orientation; membership or non membership of a trade union. The Company’s equal opportunities policy is overseen by the Chief Executive, Dean Webster and supported by the HR department.

We are an international company that offers international opportunities and we have a multi-national workforce with over 30 nationalities, where everyone is treated fairly and with respect. The culture of our organisation is one where people can fulfil their potential and progress rapidly, whatever their background. We endeavour to ensure that the diversity of society is reflected within our business. Our work often takes us abroad so we strive to keep informed of a countries unique culture and respond sensitively by adapting our working style as appropriate.


Health and Safety

As a leading construction and property consultancy, Cyril Sweett places the highest priority and is committed, so far as is reasonably practicable, to ensure that we provide a working environment that is safe and free from risks for our staff and stakeholders. Health and safety is a priority on our agenda which impacts the way in which we manage our business objectives. We will achieve this by legal compliance as a minimum standard, striving at all times to maintain a culture of continual improvement and industry best practice.

We promote that every employee must co-operate with us to enable all statutory duties to be complied with. The successful implementation of this policy requires total commitment from all employees. Each of our operating regions is served by a health and safety team covering our offices.
Over the last year Cyril Sweett has made overall improvements in the way Health and Safety is managed in the company and we will be introducing a safety management system (SMS) later this year. We have received awards from RoSPA and the British Safety Council for our commitment to Health and Safety .