SGS Packaging Europe

Our colleagues have been working from home for a few weeks now and we’ve enjoyed seeing how everyone has adapted to this temporary arrangement. If you still feel that your home office could do with some improvement, below are a few suggestions. Create an independent workspace If possible, find a space where you won’t be interrupted, or at least have room to get your daily tasks done. This could be anything from a workstation in a corner (some staff have transformed dining tables and side cabinets into effective desks), to a spare room or loft space transformed into a home office. Face a window If you’re able to set your workspace up so that it faces a window, it will bring multiple benefits. First of all, natural light and a nice view are great for your mental health, which will help you to stay cheery during your working day. Also, having the light in front of you means that colleagues can see you more clearly during team calls and virtual cuppa breaks. Get creati

Due to the coronavirus pandemic, our staff across the UK and Europe are working from home. If you’re one of them, you might be interested in an online fitness group that’s been created so that colleagues can stay active and take part in friendly weekly competitions with each other. This positive community is hosted on Strava, a social fitness network that tracks running, cycling and other forms of exercise. The app in particular monitors your progress using GPS data, which means that you need to be moving around outside. As a result, if you’re exercising at home you won’t be able to log your data through the app. However, by updating your profile through the website, there’s the option to mark activity as Stationery Trainer or Treadmill. To do this, use the pencil icon on the activity to edit it, then select the tag and enter your totals. You can also access this through the Stationary activity page, which displays a performance graph highlighting your heart rate, speed and

Kate Houlton is a Reprographic Artworker at our Bridgehead site. As with many of our colleagues, Kate’s keen on keeping fit and active, so she recently gave us an update on the SGS Step Challenge. As the official Walk All Over Cancer event that’s organised by Cancer Research UK, staff at Bridgehead have given themselves the challenge of walking 10,000 steps every single day throughout March, meaning that by the end of the month each of them will have walked a minimum of 31,000 steps (no cheat days or weekends off). Kate says: “Karl Thomas organised it last year as a Team Brand vs Team Retail competition. It proved really successful, so it was organised again for 2020 with the help of John Lazenby, Charly Marritt, Charlie Saunders and Nikki O'Donnell. This year we are doing Team Retail vs Team Brand again and have also added an extra category, Team Liquorish (as they do all sorts), for anyone else who wanted to join in.” Our Bridgehead colleagues have given themselv

SGS Packaging Europe has apprentices based at our Maltings, Bridgehead and Tamworth sites, each working toward a valuable qualification whilst learning a range of skills. This combination of a structured training programme, individual duties and one-to-one mentoring enables them to earn while they learn, leading to enriching careers in an innovative and ever-changing industry. As part of the apprenticeship scheme, Development Days are held that combine practical exercises with fun activities. These events help our sixteen apprentices to get to know each other better, share their experiences and work with SGS colleagues from other departments. We recently held a Development Day in Hull, where apprentices from the three sites came together to learn more about mental health and wellbeing in the workplace. By making mental health a priority and ensuring that staff know how to recognise symptoms, the group’s members are now more confident in understanding their