Developing Committed People

As at 30 April 2011 we employed 3,266 people in stores, depots and offices throughout the Group. Our aims are to ensure that everyone has the right skills and knowledge to do their jobs; to offer our people a good range of incentives and benefits; and to value and promote the diversity of our workforce. Staff stability is important to us as a measure of employee loyalty and satisfaction and we track retention rates continually.

Our aims in 2010/11 were:

• To roll out the store manager development programme for all store managers
• To implement a new service and sales training process which has been developed through 2010 and then made available in 2011;
• To improve the people KPIs to produce greater visibility of the diversity of our workforce; and
• To work on the feedback from the employee survey which involved all employees in the UK & RoI and re-run the survey.
   

Our Progress in 2010/11 was:

Store manager development programme

We have continued the roll out of our store manager training programme in the UK and RoI and supported the expansion of beds with sales and product knowledge training. 48 managers completed the training this year, resulting in 189 trained managers and senior retail management having passed the course.

In The Netherlands a management skills training program for store managers has been launched. Training is split into two modules of which 159 store managers and assistant managers have completed Module 1 and 142 store managers and assistant managers have completed Module 2. 82% of store management have successfully completed Module 1 and Module 2 of the management training programme. Product knowledge and sales training is also being delivered in store.

New service and sales training process

We ran a training day for all of our Estimators in the UK and RoI covering service, selling and product information.

An internally developed programme: “Selling CARPET right” has been introduced in Belgium. The programme is being undertaken by all store based staff.

50% of the employees in Belgium also undertook product training and participated in factory visits.

People KPIs

Throughout the past year, the proportion of our staff employees in the UK and RoI with more than 3 years’ service has increased to 71% (2010: 62%).

There has also been an increase in the proportion of our employees in The Netherlands with more than 3 years’ service to 79.6% (2010: 74.8%).

We also, collate data detailing the ratio of female to male employees, which shows that 1 in 5 of our workforce in the UK and RoI are female (2010: 1 in 5).

Employee survey

‘Have Your Say’, an internal survey provided to all employees, was conducted during the year in the UK and RoI. The survey was
run again in the UK in December 2010 and the results have been communicated throughout the business.

An employee survey was undertaken in Europe, the results of which are still being analysed.

Our targets 2011/12 are:

• To continue with the Store Manager Training Programme, targeting a further 25% of our Managers;
• To continue with the management skills training programme in The Netherlands.
• To run a training day for all Store Managers and a further day for all Assistant Managers; and
• In conjunction with the trials of our new concept stores in 2011/12, to introduce improved sales and service training
  in those stores.