Celebrating our Commitment to People at Cloud96 min read
Cloud9 has just been crowned the winners of the Commitment to People Award at the Sussex Chamber Business Awards 2026. We are very proud of this award as it recognises the high investment we have put into our people and company culture. Creating and developing talent is part of our company purpose at Cloud9, as showcased in our mission statement: “Developing Talent: Cloud9 is a place to thrive. We grow skills and careers, creating fair opportunities for everyone to stretch, learn and lead. We provide career entry routes, fair pay and progression, and we design work and training to be inclusive and accessible for everyone.”.
We’d like to take this opportunity to highlight what we do to create a work culture where people can grow their skills and advance their careers in order to achieve their full potential.
Start From the Beginning
Cloud9’s nurturing of future talent begins even before new employees arrive for their first day. As part of our recruitment process, we encourage all candidates to fill out a ‘Future 10-Year CV’. This is an opportunity for people to detail their aspirations, both personal and professional, for the next ten years. This exercise allows us to see how our employees see themselves, and where they want to be in the coming years, which enables us to better support their ambitions.
In addition, new employees are assigned a buddy prior to joining. The buddy is usually someone from a different department, and their role is to be a friendly face whilst the new employee settles in. Buddies will send a welcome email before the employee’s first day so that they are acquainted before starting, and on their first day they are taken out for a buddy lunch, on Cloud9. Our buddy system is designed to help new employees feel welcome and integrated as part of the wider team right from the start of their journey with us.
A Focus on Training
Cloud9’s CEO Carlene Jackson is a keen advocate of hiring people early on in their careers and upskilling them to reach their full potential, something she frequently speaks about on the BBC. To assist with the team’s development from the start, we have developed a transparent ‘flight path’ which gives a clear picture of the potential for growth in the company and so helps to accelerate career progression.
Cloud9 supports all members of the team in attaining Microsoft certifications to ensure they can stay up to date on their learning and they stay at the forefront of our industry. Many of our team have now become fully qualified Microsoft Dynamics consultants.
Perhaps Cloud9’s most standout training initiative is our monthly ‘Elevate Days’. Every month we dedicate a whole working day to bringing the company together to elevate themselves as well as the company. Sessions range from learning soft skills, such as how to do an elevator pitch, to hard skills, such as how to make the most of Microsoft Copilot Studio. Elevate Days are a great opportunity for people to upskill themselves and to learn from all the different departments within the company. Elevate Day is often a lot of fun because it is a chance to collaborate as a whole company and to spend time with your colleagues, plus we frequently have team building activities on these days, such as a treasure hunt, and we all come together for lunch, to enjoy either fish and chips on the beach or homemade pizzas!
Continuous Support
A key element of any training and development initiative is to ensure that it is consistent, so employees never feel like their learning is sidelined. Cloud9 has a structured mentoring programme in place, which is available for everyone in the business, where more experienced team members provide guidance to those who are less experienced. The programme involves regular sessions between mentor and mentee, at least every fortnight, where they will meet to discuss points of learning and development. In between these sessions, the mentor is still always on hand to answer any questions and assist with any challenges.
Alongside their mentoring meetings, employees also have quarterly review meetings with their line manager. These reviews give employees the chance to discuss their career progression and to set certification and learning goals for the future. Cloud9 uses the concept of sand, pebbles, and boulders to identify obstacles which are preventing employees from working at their best. Sand is a minor frustration that can be easily swept away if there is an awareness of it, pebbles are annoyances that are tolerated on a day-to-day basis but that make it more difficult to reach full success in a role, and boulders are significant blockers that need to be removed for progress to happen. By identifying and classifying an employee’s obstacles in this way, we can more easily eliminate each obstacle and empower employees to address the challenges they face in their daily life.
Business for Good
Another of our proudest achievements this year is becoming a Certified B Corporation. Certified B Corps make up less than 1% of UK businesses so we are honoured to be part of this small, but growing, community. Becoming a B Corp means meeting some of the highest standards of social and environmental performance, transparency, and accountability, and it means becoming part of a global community of businesses using their work as a force for good.
Being B Corp Certified shows our commitment to our people because, as part of it, we have created many policies designed to benefit our people, such as an ethical conduct policy, a breastfeeding policy, and a charitable giving policy. We have also been inspired to become more involved in local community events and helping our employees to fundraise for the causes that are important to them. For example, one of our team members took part in the 2025 Big Sleep Out run by The Clock Tower Sanctuary to raise money for young people facing homelessness in Brighton. Cloud9 helped to champion their fundraising campaign, and matched the donations that this team member raised.
We started our journey towards becoming B Corp Certified because we felt that our business and our values already coincided well with B Lab’s standards, and aligning with this certification helps to continuously push us to drive more impact and to always put our team first.
Final Thoughts
We want to once again thank the Sussex Chamber of Commerce for honouring us with this award. As we continue to grow as a company, we remain committed to investing in our people and building a company culture of learning and development. We want Cloud9 to always be a business where people feel supported in striving to achieve success, both professionally and personally.
We hope that some of our initiatives will give other businesses inspiration on how they can help empower their teams.