Purpose powers performance

For Hellen Bowey, founder of care technology company Alcove, the name of the care game is connection. Alcove’s devices – from “carephone” tablets to sensors – ensure older and vulnerable people can quickly and easily speak to family, friends and carers or alert them in an emergency at home, whether it’s a fall or illness. “Our most popular products are the fall wearables such as smart watches, sensors and the video carephone,” Bowey says. “We are the largest supplier of radar sensors for older adults in dispersed settings across the UK.”

She adds: “A regular tablet can be unusable to an 80-year-old with dementia” – and so Alcove’s video carephone tablet has simplified functionality for older generations, such as its one-touch calling facility.

Also making an impact in health and social care are Tiku Chauhan and Kavita Parmar, co-owners of Word360, a vital partner to public sector organisations such as the NHS and local councils. Word360 provides language support to patients 24 hours a day, either in person or virtually, with the help of 15,000 freelance translators across the UK covering 450 languages and dialects. Birmingham-based Word360 has built its own tech platform, Wordskii, to seamlessly match clients to the right interpreters.

Chauhan and Parmar acquired the firm from Chauhan’s uncle in 2013. The pair, who are married, both wanted to run their own business and felt Word360 had huge potential. At the time, it had one NHS contract, five staff and an annual turnover of £600,000. Now it is one of the largest suppliers of translators and interpreters in the UK. The couple expect to secure their first global customer by the end of the year.

“The people make our business,” says Parmar. “We are the leaders but we have loyal, determined and resilient people. Word360 goes further than language support. We give people local jobs, mobilise disadvantaged communities and help embed migrants into society.”

Vanessa Leach is another leader with a noble aim: to reach the thousands of children and young people who cannot access mainstream education – whether due to exclusion, mental health difficulties or special educational needs.

The company she leads, Tute Education, provided education to 6,000 students in England and Wales last year, delivered online by more than 160 qualified teachers. Tute Education is expanding fast, as more students face barriers to learning in mainstream settings. The company is expecting to achieve a turnover of £20 million in three to four years, supporting thousands more students.

“Some children see us as their lifeline and really excel. Their parents tell us we have changed their families’ lives. It’s amazing,” says Leach.

“The students we teach are affected by a complex range of societal factors, increasing the demand for our support. We are a vital partner to schools and local authorities in filling critical gaps in education.”

She adds there is still plenty more to be done. Tute’s vision is to actively contribute to building an education system that enables every child, anywhere, to achieve their potential.

Nurture growth at every level

Smart CEOs build loyalty and boost productivity by prioritising employee wellbeing and fostering a positive work environment.

A people-first culture that prioritises the wellbeing of employees is increasingly important to company leaders. Studies consistently show that satisfied workers are more productive, engaged and loyal.

The LDC Top 50 Most Ambitious Business Leaders are taking various measures to nurture great cultures and happy members of staff.

Dr Sally Beattie and Emer Bustard run Lazy Day Foods – one of the first food manufacturers in Scotland to move to a four-day working week.

The Lanarkshire company, which employs 140 people and produces allergy-friendly sweet treats, made the change in 2022 after staff said they wanted a better work-life balance. Everyone works Monday to Thursday, with an overtime shift added on Friday during busy periods.

“It has been a tremendous success right across the business. Everybody’s enjoying it. We hear lovely stories of employees spending more time with their grandchildren or people getting away for a long weekend,” says co-founder Bustard.

Investing in your people makes good financial sense. Sat Sanghera, CEO at contact centre technology firm IPI, says if you genuinely take care of employees, they’ll look after your clients – who will ultimately invest more in your services.

He has launched a quarterly People Forum, where his 140 employees can talk to him about improving aspects of the business. The firm also hosts regular “lunch and learns”, teaching different topics to employees.

Every summer, IPI hosts a family day, where activities are put on for children and families. “I want kids to come in and see where their parents work and for us to really appreciate and say thank you to their families, to thank the real heroes,” Sanghera says.

For Carl Henriksen, founder and CEO of IT services provider OryxAlign, investing in people means concentrating on career progression – mapping out career and development pathways for all his 110 staff, empowering and investing in them to get ahead. Every employee has a subscription to the e-learning platform Udemy, allowing them to learn soft skills such as presenting, negotiating and critical thinking as well as those directly relevant to their role.

Half of the leadership team is made up of women and a quarter of staff are from ethnic minorities.

“We’re super social as a business – culture is such an essential part of who we are,” Henriksen explains. “That gives us a bit of a competitive advantage when we’re pitching our services to new clients. They get the relationships we have with each other.”