Marks and Spencer received a 92 per cent response rate to its staff survey.
Communication key to boosting morale at work, says HR director
Claire Churchard
Marks and Spencer received a 92 per cent response rate to its staff survey. |
Publication date: 1 September 2009
Source: PM Online
Levels of employee engagement have increased at Marks and Spencer despite recent job losses and store closures, PM has learnt.
HR director Tanith Dodge said the retailer’s latest employee survey revealed higher scores in staff attitudes towards the company, their manager and their job. Almost three-quarters (72 per cent) of the scores were positive despite the announcement of 1,200 job losses, 27 store closures and the capping of the company pension scheme in January this year.
She added that the company was “very proud” of a 92 per cent response rate to its staff survey, called Your Say, which was conducted in May. Among the questions that recorded a higher score than last year were “Do you think that you will be working with M&S in 12 months’ time?” and “Would you recommend M&S as a great place to work to your friends?”
Dodge, who joined M&S in March last year, said that keeping the firm’s 78,000 employees informed about changes was critical to maintaining engagement during economic uncertainty. “I don’t believe you can ever communicate too much,” she said.
“Communication is important so staff can get behind the key messages and ensure they land properly in stores. It’s about keeping people informed so they have a sense of belonging and an understanding of what is happening,” she said.
Dodge has overseen an increase in the level of communication. This includes a rise in the frequency of store conferences from annually to quarterly, the introduction of regular conference calls to store managers and an increase in the number of all-staff briefings. Daily “huddles” among staff are also encouraged, while communication is boosted when trading results are announced or in the case of a big event.
Employees are also regularly invited to breakfasts hosted by directors, where there is no fixed agenda and they have the opportunity to ask questions. The outcomes of these meetings are then reviewed at executive committee level.
Having regular dialogue with a large employee representative group was also critical to staff engagement and members conducted pulse surveys to find out how employees were, Dodge said. Other communications initiatives included “listening groups” and a series of employee focus groups.
Dodge said the way in which messages were delivered to staff was also important. When M&S changed its final-salary pension scheme by capping the amount that an individual pension would increase by, Dodge and other senior leaders took the message to staff directly. “I visited many stores to explain, as did our operations director and Stuart [Rose, chief executive],” she said. “It is really important that employees understand not just what we are doing, but why we are doing it.”