Our people are at the heart of our success. We believe that engaging all employees and galvanising their efforts in line with the Company’s Vision and Values will set us on a successful path to achieving all our business objectives.
Resourcing and recruitmentplus
Agile working practices continue to be applied by our Resourcing team with a firm emphasis on sourcing talent proactively, reducing reliance on temporary agency labour, and maximising internal talent development opportunities. As a result, we have continued to successfully attract, engage and recruit a large number of employees across all areas, despite ongoing challenges regarding candidate shortages across all sectors, significantly reducing time to hire and costs accordingly. We offer tailored recruitment solutions to meet each challenge and maximise every opportunity to select and engage the best available talent.
We continue to identify and engage new technologies to embed innovative, efficient and cost-effective resourcing and recruitment solutions to meet business needs. This includes new technologies such as digital hiring events and pay-per-click campaigns, while applying new technologies such as digital Right-to-Work checks, digital employment contracts and digital onboarding, in order to secure and onboard new employees efficiently. In addition, we continue to upskill our hiring manager population with recruitment training and support.
Talent pipelines through the Apprenticeships and Kickstart schemesplus
We continue to utilise the Apprenticeship Levy, with two new bespoke apprenticeship programmes commencing for the first time this year: ‘Grow’ and ‘Aspire2b’.
In addition, we had 32 individuals working through their apprenticeships in 2022, covering business relevant training ranging from finance, manufacturing and engineering, maintenance, procurement, learning and development and business administration. Combined with our bespoke programmes, we had a total of 69 live apprenticeships in the year, 68 of which are still with the business and 14 of which have already been promoted.
Due to its success in helping to retain and engage our people, in addition to the positive impact on both the individuals themselves and the business, we anticipate further growth in the use of apprenticeships in 2023.
Incentives and rewardsplus
Every employee has access to a variety of benefits that will support them both inside and outside of work. Our total reward strategy ensures that all employees are eligible for a range of incentives that include a defined-contribution pension scheme, life insurance, Save as You Earn (‘Sharesave’) schemes, and access to a range of savings and special offers through our Eurxtras platform.
Eurxtras was re-designed and relaunched in 2022 in order to make it a more comprehensive platform than just a savings portal – it now provides employees with information on health and wellbeing, a means of communicating to our colleagues and an opportunity for managers and employees to recognise others.
New pay structures were launched in April 2022, following a detailed review of the levels of pay and reward in our branch-based, manufacturing and warehousing teams, and has resulted a continued reduction in labour turnover since. This initiative supported our continued commitment to our employees, to help drive retention and place us in the best position to attract the best people, with the right skills and knowledge into our business.
Learning and development plus
We are committed to continuously improving the availability and quality of training and development for employees at all levels across the Group.
In 2021, we developed our first framework for Leadership and Management Development and during 2022 we have continued to bring to life various activities, resources and programmes to enable our people to develop critical leadership and management skills.
Our new level 3 management development programme for team leaders commenced this year, with a total of 31 team leaders enrolled, primarily from the operations side of the business. The 12-month programme is built around the Chartered Management Institute (CMI) and Institute of Apprenticeships level 3 Standard, leading to recognised management qualifications that our people can feel proud to have achieved.
During 2022 we rolled out an extensive programme of mandatory cyber security training to all colleagues in a series of monthly short videos and quizzes covering a range of security threats and ways to mitigate the risks.
Diverse and inclusive cultureplus
We recognise the benefits of encouraging diversity and inclusivity across the business and believe that this will contribute to our continued success.
In keeping with our commitment to equal opportunity and, irrespective of any disability, we treat all employees and job applicants equally, without bias or discrimination and our recruitment policy ensures that full and fair consideration is given to all applicants based purely on their aptitude. All appointments are made based on merit and are measured against specific objective criteria, including the skills and experience needed for the position.
We continue to promote flexible solutions tailored to, and supportive of, individual needs. Our internal processes support all employees who may require help and support, including employees who are disabled/ become disabled during their employment, to fulfil their day-to-day work activities through our occupational health provision. We provide specific support for specific groups and individuals throughout our business, including the provision of free English and maths tuition for non-English speakers, access to mental wellbeing support and a free employee assistance programme.
Whilst we operate in a historically male-dominated industry, we are very committed to increasing the participation of women throughout the Group. Our target is to deliver year on year increases in the proportion of female employees in the Group. This was achieved in 2022, with female employees increasing to 15% (2021: 14%).
2022 Gender analysis* | Male no. | % | Female no. | % | Total average no. |
Directors | 6 | 75% | 2 | 25% | 8 |
Executive Committee | 5 | 83% | 1 | 17% | 6 |
Other senior management | 27 | 69% | 12 | 31% | 39 |
Senior management | 38 | 72% | 15 | 28% | 53 |
Other employees | 1,868 | 85% | 329 | 15% | 2,197 |
Total | 1,906 | 85% | 344 | 15% | 2,250 |
*2022 excludes Security Hardware as the business was sold on 2 December 2022. The comparative period includes Security Hardware.
Wellbeingplus
We carried out another staff ‘Pulse’ survey in 2022, following its initial launch in 2021, to provide colleagues with the opportunity to tell us how they feel.
KPI | 2022 | 2021 | Change |
Response rate | 69% | 60% | 9% |
Employee satisfaction | 77% | 68% | 9% |
Encouragingly, both the response rate and, more importantly, the Employee satisfaction rate saw an overall increase and the results of the survey have been used to signpost our people strategy along with building action plans based on the detailed colleague feedback.
We have continued to support hybrid and other flexible working practices where appropriate. The ability for some employees to work from home, coupled with some flexibility in working hour patterns, has provided the business with enhanced coverage through the working day and helped a large number of colleagues strike an improved worklife balance.
Furthermore, we have introduced an enhanced occupational health provision, which provides additional support to employees experiencing mental health issues, trauma and bereavement. We also plan to further improve our occupational health provision in 2023, with more targeted health surveillance, along with the introduction of a healthcare cash plan for all employees.
Health and safetyplus
We are committed to conduct our business in a responsible manner, ensuring the health, safety and welfare of our employees, visitors and contractors who undertake work on our behalf. We believe that effective health and safety management and continual improvement in performance is critical to our continued success.
During 2022 the number of RIDDOR incidents reduced by 18%, reflecting the fact that fewer more serious incidents were experienced in the year. Our RIDDOR record is below the industry average, although the Injury Frequency Rate and Lost Time Injury Rate both increased when compared to the previous year.
We have improved the reporting of near misses and unsafe acts and conditions, as part of a proactive approach to risk management, with the aim of reducing the likelihood of future workplace injuries. This improvement, when combined with the effective and timely implementation of corrective and preventive action, supports our positive safety culture and we are targeting an improvement in these KPIs in 2023.
KPI | 2022 | 2021 |
Injury frequency rate1 | 4.8 | 3.7 |
Lost time injury frequency rate2 | 1.0 | 0.8 |
RIDDOR-reportable injuries | 23 | 28 |
Near misses | 102 | 29 |
1 Injuries per 100,000 hours worked.
2 Lost time accidents per 100,000 hours worked.
During 2022, we introduced an escalation reporting process, whereby the relevant senior managers are notified of all lost time incidents and are required to attend root cause analysis meetings, to help ensure lost time incidents and other more serious incidents gain the attention they need to prevent recurrence.
There were no site visits by the Health & Safety Executive during the year and only a small number of recommendations were forthcoming from insurance surveys and inspections, all of which have been appropriately addressed.
Certification to ISO 45001 was maintained for our main manufacturing sites in Alfreton, with a small number of minor non-conformances and opportunities for improvement identified. As part of our Safety, Health and Environment (SHE) strategy we aim to achieve certification to the standard across all Eurocell operational facilities by the end of 2025.
- Previous Minimising our environmental impact
- Next Working responsibly