Retail is the largest private sector employer in the UK, and M&S is a significant contributor
towards this. We employ around 73,000 people in the UK and a further 5,000 worldwide. We have one of the lowest
employee turnover rates in UK retail, at 23% for customer assistants and 12% for management. Around 44% of our people
have been with us for over five years and 26% for more than 10 years.
We have redesigned our learning and development programme to identify and train the next generation of leaders, as well as to ensure talented people within our business are given the right sort of training and encouragement to develop.
Lead to Succeed – Our flagship leadership programme Lead to Succeed targets the
development of the 300 most senior M&S people. It is designed to identify and develop people for succession and is built around our M&S brand values – Quality, Value, Service, Innovation and Trust.
Line managers – Phase one of a new line management development programme has
been launched. This is designed to develop the 2,000 line managers who are critical to the motivation and retention of talent across the business.
Academies – We have developed our GM and Food academies so we continue to innovate as a business. Staff attend a variety of master-classes, from improving their core buying capabilities and range
planning in GM to their culinary and tasting skills in food.
International – We have concentrated on training managers who are building our overseas businesses to encourage consistency of the M&S brand, taking into account local and cultural differences.
Your M&S Career Path – All of our UK and Republic of Ireland employees are supported by Your M&S Career Path training and learning programmes. In-store, our customer assistants complete a thorough induction of up to 26 weeks and work through four possible levels of coaching cards. In addition, section managers and store managers receive targeted workshops, designed to improve selling and cost management skills.
The M&S benefits package remains one of the best in the retail sector. New membership to the final salary pension scheme closed in 2002, but we offer a generous retirement plan where M&S matches employees contributions by up to 12%.
One in three employees (26,000) participated in our Sharesave Schemes in 2008/09. There was a 21% increase in employees joining Sharesave over the previous year due to our low share price as well as employees
coming out of options with a higher price. We are pleased that so many employees want to invest in the business and believe in its prospects for growth.
We have a number of initiatives designed to make people feel well-cared for. For example we run two-year breast screening cycles. Some 27,000 were screened in the cycle that ended in February 2009, and a further 13,400 women will be screened in the new programme starting this year.
We have had to make some difficult decisions this year, and we recognise that it is more important than ever to clearly communicate with our employees. We have a range of channels to do this:
The Top 100 briefing is designed to deliver Head Office messages to the top managers.
Director Breakfast meetings have been increased so that colleagues in-stores can
meet the leaders of different business units.
In-store listening groups ensure issues can be communicated to Head Office; and
Quarterly results broadcasts to all M&S employees to keep them abreast of
Company performance.
Additionally we communicate with all of our employees through the M&S intranet and employee magazine. The annual employee opinion survey, Your Say, which has a response rate of over 90%, looks at a range of issues from job satisfaction to management performance. We now have three sets of results – from 2006 to 2008 – to compare and we can see trends emerging showing us where we are making progress and where we need to do better. Our overall positive score for 2008 remained consistent with previous years at 70% and we will be striving for the same when the 2009 results are in.
More than 3,500 elected employee representatives from every part of the business sit on our Business Involvement Groups (BIG). In this challenging year BIG has played an increasingly important role in representing colleagues views on matters relating to work and employment. Critically, BIG led the consultation process
for stores and Head Office, successfully submitting counter proposals on behalf of employees that were accepted by
the business and resulted in changes to Company proposals.
Additionally, BIG developed initiatives to improve overall business profitability and efficiency; for example focusing on ‘fill’ productivity – the process of getting stock onto shelves. Working with store colleagues, BIG developed ideas to simplify the fill process which has helped contribute to £4m in
savings and to noticeably strengthen product availability in stores.
Despite the tough trading conditions, there is much to look forward to in the months ahead. Our employees will join in our anniversary celebrations, and are in the midst of a major fundraising challenge to raise £1.25m for local charities in just 125 days. Colleagues in every store and office have selected their charities
and are coming up with creative ways to reach our target, so that we can give something back to the communities that
have supported us through the years. We look forward to tallying the results in September 2009.
Our business relies on people, and we have worked hard to earn the reputation of an employer of choice. We have a clear plan in place to ensure we recruit, train, retain and develop talent, and in turn create a
high performance business. These initiatives have been designed, developed and are now being implemented to build for the future. They will stand the test of time.