STRATEGIC REPORT
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We continued to invest in the development of our leadership population, migrating our quarterly “offsites” and our leadership development programme – “Just Lead” – to a virtual solution. As part of our focus on building organisational resilience, we delivered a “Resilient Leader” programme for our 50 most senior leaders. The programme was part of our commitment to equipping our leaders with the psychological knowledge and skills to optimise their own wellbeing and performance and to help them promote the resilience and health of their teams. 60 managers took part in our core leadership and management development programmes (Just Lead and Just Engage) across seven cohorts, all delivered virtually. We also updated succession plans to key leadership (including executive) and technical roles – identifying emergency cover, near-term and longer-term successors. FACILITATING COLLEAGUES TO STAY CONNECTED At the end of March we introduced “Just Connected” emails, with content supplied by colleagues, to share across the organisation. This provided a more personal style of communication and offered glimpses into people’s lives – from how they were coping with the challenges of home schooling and structuring their work days, through to their views on Black Lives Matter and celebrating a socially distanced Diwali. With almost 100 Just Connected stories over the course of the year, as well as regular business updates and videos on our company intranet, 95% of colleagues who responded to our last quarterly pulse survey in October agreed that they felt informed about what was happening in our Company. We also recognised the important part chats in the corridors, catch ups in the kitchen and after work gatherings play in maintaining a connected culture. We therefore ensured emphasis was placed onmore informal activities – from lunch breaks and pub socials to a comedian night and Escape Room– all delivered virtually. In the run up to the holiday season in December we celebrated the Twelve Days of Christmas with a whole host of virtual activities, including fun videos, live quizzes and competitions. SUPPORT FOR COLLEAGUES’ WELLBEING AND OUR COMMUNITIES Early on in the pandemic we realised that colleagues’ experiences of working remotely, and the challenges of their particular circumstances, meant that we needed to offer an increased range of wellbeing support and guidance. At the centre of how we managed business decision making in relation to COVID-19, we strived to protect the wellbeing of our colleagues. Our people highly valued this approach, and again in gauging views through our internal pulse survey, 91% of respondents agreed that the Company was taking their health and wellbeing seriously. This approach meant that our people continued to go above and beyond to look after our customers, we saw no drop off in productivity and everyone was committed to continuing to successfully run our business. In taking the view that “one size doesn’t fit all” we put in place a range of initiatives built around mental, physical, social and financial wellbeing. To share some examples: • In April we launched the corporate version of the Headspace App for all colleagues, described as a “gymmembership for the mind”. With science-backed benefits aligned to reducing feelings of stress and assisting with greater focus, content such as “stress release” and a “switching off” visualisation to relax the body and mind, supported relevant challenges for our workforce. • In May we recognised Mental Health Awareness Week and in particular promoted the 20 Mental Health First Aiders we have at Just. These individuals are on hand for colleagues who may be experiencing emotional distress or a mental health issue and can offer initial support and guidance to the relevant services available. • Understanding the strong link between mental health and financial wellbeing, in June we teamed up with Mercer, our benefit broker, to provide a series of financial webinars on various topics including tax, budgeting, prioritising debt, savings, investments, borrowing, wills and powers of attorney. This was supported with our internal “Just Talk” programme, designed to share learnings from our vulnerable customer programme with colleagues to help them and their families achieve a better life now and in the future.
I THINK THAT JUST HAS SHOWN A GENUINE INTEREST IN THE HEALTH AND WELLBEING OF STAFF COLLEAGUE COMMENT FROM PULSE SURVEY
By the end of March, and in light of COVID-19, 99% of our colleagues were working remotely, a significant transition for a predominantly office-based organisation. We were able to provide colleagues with new technology and other equipment to enable them to work productively within a two to three week period. Maintaining resilience, our teams delivered all critical services to customers, whilst implementing changes to service design and product features to help customers – particularly our vulnerable ones – navigate the impact of lockdown. You can read how we helped our customers on page 21. During the following nine months we increased our focus in five areas critical to continue to support our people and deliver our Group-wide strategy. These remained aligned to our three strategic people priorities. “Turning up the dial” allowed us to take people challenges and turn them into great opportunities to successfully engage and develop colleagues in ways that we would not have envisaged 12 months previously. In January 2021 we took part in the annual Best Companies survey and as a result of this focus, we were delighted to achieve our highest level of employee engagement since starting to take part in the survey in 2009. INCREASED LEADERSHIP COMMUNICATION AND DEVELOPMENT Having entered the year with good levels of employee engagement, we already had an established programme of non-executive and executive leadership communication and engagement activities in place. See page 48 for more details on the Board’s approach to colleague engagement. We have been accredited as a 2 star organisation (representing outstanding levels of engagement) via the Best Companies index. We achieved a 7% increase in our Best Companies score in comparison to 2019 and had an 86% response rate. We also held three pulse engagement surveys highlighting extremely positive results, with an average response rate of approximately 650 colleagues. As well as increasing the volume and channels used for leadership communication, in particular with a greater use of video, we also focused on ensuring that our messages clearly addressed issues that were important to colleagues in a clear and transparent way. Our quarterly colleague town halls were delivered remotely, with 91% of respondents who completed October’s short internal pulse survey agreeing that they found them valuable. Through the same survey mechanism, we also saw a significant increase in colleague advocacy, with the number of colleagues agreeing that they would recommend working at the Company to friends and family reaching 85%. During 2020 we held four CEO town halls to provide business updates and promote two-way communication, with an average attendance of approximately 700 colleagues. We also held three Conversations with the Board sessions for colleagues’ views to feed into Board decision making, with approximately 250 attendees in total.
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