Marks and Spencer 2012 Annual Report Download - page 34

Download and view the complete annual report

Please find page 34 of the 2012 Marks and Spencer annual report below. You can navigate through the pages in the report by either clicking on the pages listed below, or by using the keyword search tool below to find specific information within the annual report.

Page out of 116

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • 6
  • 7
  • 8
  • 9
  • 10
  • 11
  • 12
  • 13
  • 14
  • 15
  • 16
  • 17
  • 18
  • 19
  • 20
  • 21
  • 22
  • 23
  • 24
  • 25
  • 26
  • 27
  • 28
  • 29
  • 30
  • 31
  • 32
  • 33
  • 34
  • 35
  • 36
  • 37
  • 38
  • 39
  • 40
  • 41
  • 42
  • 43
  • 44
  • 45
  • 46
  • 47
  • 48
  • 49
  • 50
  • 51
  • 52
  • 53
  • 54
  • 55
  • 56
  • 57
  • 58
  • 59
  • 60
  • 61
  • 62
  • 63
  • 64
  • 65
  • 66
  • 67
  • 68
  • 69
  • 70
  • 71
  • 72
  • 73
  • 74
  • 75
  • 76
  • 77
  • 78
  • 79
  • 80
  • 81
  • 82
  • 83
  • 84
  • 85
  • 86
  • 87
  • 88
  • 89
  • 90
  • 91
  • 92
  • 93
  • 94
  • 95
  • 96
  • 97
  • 98
  • 99
  • 100
  • 101
  • 102
  • 103
  • 104
  • 105
  • 106
  • 107
  • 108
  • 109
  • 110
  • 111
  • 112
  • 113
  • 114
  • 115
  • 116

Strategic review Marks and Spencer Group plc Annual report and financial statements 2012 32
Our people
Plan A: 5,000th
Marks & Start placement
Launched in 2004, our Marks
& Start work experience
programme has helped over
5,000 people into the
workplace. Working with four
charity partners, we support
the homeless, disabled,
lone parents and young
unemployed by providing
work experience. Over 40%
of participants go on to full
time employment and we
plan to increase placements
offered in 2012/13.
Our people are at the very heart of our business; responsible for delivering our
business plans and making M&S special for our customers. We employ over
81,000 people around the world and throughout the year we worked hard to
equip them with the skills to drive our business forward. New initiatives have
boosted engagement and helped employees better understand the crucial role
they play in delivering our great products and service.
training programme, Lead to Succeed,
to include new International and
Multi-channel modules. We also better
aligned management programmes to
ensure future leaders develop the right
skills to support our growth plans.
The success of our new store format is
dependent on our employees bringing it
to life for customers. With this in mind,
we rolled out a comprehensive training
package – completing almost 90,000
hours of store training. Initially in our
Food Halls, the training focused on
enhancing product knowledge, as well
as the specialist skills required for new
departments such as delis.
Employee engagement
Despite a challenging trading
environment, our annual ‘Your Say’
employee survey showed improving
engagement scores, with positivity
remaining broadly level at 75%. The
results showed a strong correlation
between high engagement and
performance; with stores in the top
quartile of engagement achieving 8%
higher mystery shop scores than those
in the bottom quartile.
We continued to drive engagement
through our communications channels
to ensure employees understand our
business plans and the part they play.
2011/12 was the first full year of ‘The
BIG Idea’, in which a director challenges
employees to come up with improved
ways of working, such as ‘How can we
help more customers shop both online
and in store?’ More than 2,000
responses were received for each
quarterly question.
Actions against our plan
Embedded a new structure to support
our growth ambitions
Developed an international HR tool kit
Tailored our training programmes to
reflect business plans
Over the last 12 months we embedded a
new organisational structure to support
our business strategy. This included the
integration of the International buying and
marketing teams into our core business,
as well as establishing a new regional
structure for International. We began work
to provide more consistent HR support to
our 6,450 international employees;
translating our HR tool kit into 18
languages and reviewing our international
benefits to align with our UK offer.
This year, we made key senior
management appointments to support
our international and multi-channel
ambitions. We continued to build a
pipeline of future talent; recruiting over
180 graduates, including our first
International graduate intake (opposite).
For the first time we also offered five
specialist E-commerce roles, to
strengthen our Multi-channel team.
With a high volume of applications for
both graduate and store positions, we
manage the initial stages of recruitment
online. This year we made the process
more efficient, adding a new interactive
questionnaire designed to better
evaluate a candidate’s attitude to
customer service and improve the
quality of stage two applicants.
Learning and development
In line with our business strategy, we
broadened the content of our flagship
Looking ahead
With the Government’s
pension auto-enrolment
changes effective from
October 2012 our new
pension plan will be in
place from summer 2012.
This will ensure we can
meet the legislative
requirements efficiently
whilst retaining a market-
leading scheme. In
tandem, we will continue
to develop our HR function
to support the future plans
of the business.
Employees with over ten
years’ service
28%
Employees with over five
years’ service
50%
OUR PEOPLE HIGHLIGHTS
Total employees
81,000