Overview
Our people
Employee survey
We conducted two employee surveys in 2007 and 2009 to get the views of all our staff on a range of areas including: strategy and leadership; values and corporate responsibility; customers and quality; learning, development and teamwork; well being and recognition; and workplace environment. Within this framework we are particularly interested in measuring employee engagement through questions around satisfaction, pride, referral and commitment and this comprises a key performance indicator for us as we measure our We Respect value (see here)
We are pleased that the 2009 survey resulted in a 10% increase in the response rate to 77%. The overall employee engagement score improved by 6% and was 7% better than the UK average. Furthermore, the percentage of overall favourable responses increased by 10%. We Respect is a core value for us and we are committed to further improving results in the next survey, which is planned for October 2010
Staff at our Yeovil depot successfully completed a Health and Safety NVQ
Jason Edney was this year’s gold award winner
People development
Our aim is to attract and retain the best staff, treat everyone fairly and with respect and to help all our people develop their potential.
We have introduced a talent scheme that helps us identify staff who have the potential to do a bigger or different job. We give these people a range of support including mentoring from senior colleagues.
As well as developing our leaders of tomorrow we recognise the importance of continuing to develop our leaders of today. To help us achieve this we ran a series of bespoke three-day ‘value leadership courses’ for our top 150 senior managers. Over the course of the last year we have also introduced competency-based frameworks for staff working as part of our marketing, commercial and supply chain teams.
This year, as part of our drive to find better and more practical ways of learning we will be putting new and more courses online as part of our e-learning programme. This initiative follows in the footsteps of our online induction programme which is already available to all staff.
Across many of our sites we have also organised English lessons for staff where English is their second language.
As well as providing staff with the opportunity to take part in shorter training courses, a growing number of staff are studying for a foundation degree in dairy processing and manufacturing at Reaseheath, Shropshire which takes three years to complete.
Rewarding success
As the UK’s leading dairy foods company we want all of our staff to benefit from our success. To help us realise this we have extended our bonus schemes to a greater number of staff and we aim to include all staff in a bonus scheme in the future. In 2009 we also invited all UK staff to participate in our three-year share save scheme.
Being valued and recognised at work is important at Dairy Crest. To ensure we do this to the best of our ability we launched a brand new reward and recognition scheme in January 2009, which gives staff the opportunity of nominating colleagues for an award. As well as celebrating individual achievements we also introduced a team of the year award, which was won by staff from our factory at Chard for developing and launching a retailer powder pouch to replace existing packaging, which saved hundreds of tonnes of cardboard.
Communications
Communication is crucial to the success of any company, and Dairy Crest is no exception. To help improve our communication channels we have introduced a new intranet that all staff can access at work or from home. The intranet, called ‘the gardens’, complements the bespoke staff briefings, a senior manager roadshow conference, newsletters, face-to-face surgeries, table talkers, posters and monthly ‘Mark Lunches’ where members of staff can meet and pose questions to Mark Allen, the Group’s Chief Executive. Staff can also email Mark directly with ideas or queries via ‘Let Mark Know’.
We will be carrying out our third employee survey in October 2010 to get the views of our staff on the group and how it has moved over the last two years.
Diversity and inclusion
At Dairy Crest we are committed to providing an inclusive working environment where everyone feels valued and respected. We recognise that people from different backgrounds, experiences and abilities can bring fresh ideas and innovations to improve our working practices and business, delivering commercial benefit and ultimately shareholder value. To help us achieve this we have set up a staff diversity steering group which will be charged with taking a leading role in shaping the future of our company.
Pension scheme
At times companies have to make very tough decisions and over the course of last year we closed the Group’s final salary pension scheme to future accrual and invited the scheme’s members to join our very competitive defined contribution stakeholder pension scheme. This decision affected 3,000 staff and was done following a full and open consultation with staff and trade unions. Clear, straightforward communication and a willingness to change following feedback helped ensure that this was implemented with little adverse effect on our relationship with our people.