At Dewhurst Group we want to create and maintain an environment where people are engaged and feel empowered, motivated, and fulfilled. To support this, we have refreshed our Group mission, vision, and values in 2023 and a key focus for 2024 is on communicating this to and engaging with all our people, to ensure that they understand and buy into the mission, vision, and values.
In 2023 we conducted our first global employee survey to measure all our people’s satisfaction and engagement, and to give employees the chance to feedback with their thoughts, to help shape our people strategy going forward. Our overall Group engagement rating is 79%.
Half of employees believe leaders will take action based on the results of the staff survey, therefore a key area of focus in the coming year is in ensuring we do all we can to improve employee satisfaction across the group. We will start with the main areas of improvement highlighted in the survey, which are communication, development opportunities, and reward and recognition.
Our senior leaders have already started to put plans in place to make improvements in these areas, such as regular team and company updates to increase transparency and trust. We are aiming for a 20% rise in satisfaction results in these areas in 2024.
Positive results from the survey were also highlighted, with pride in the business, the importance of sustainability, and employee purpose all achieving 99% employee agreement. These positive results align with the company values, and we aim to sustain positivity in these areas.
Another key priority coming out of the employee survey was to implement a global HR system in 2024. This will provide us with a more cohesive and aligned approach and will allow easier sharing of HR information and best practice, supporting our people engagement strategy.
Voluntary employee turnover for 2023 is 13%, down from 15% in 2022 and below our target of 15%. The range across the Group is wide, and we will be concentrating on companies with a high turnover rate, and using survey results, exit interviews and market data to implement improvement plans. We will also analyse Group companies with low turnover rates to discover what drives employees to stay with the company, in order to build our employee satisfaction improvement plan and bring turnover rates into alignment across the Group.
Marathon Weekender Challenge
Our team across the globe came together to make a significant impact in the aftermath of the 2023 earthquakes in Turkey and Syria. Through voluntary efforts, we took a total of 2,738,544 steps in our Marathon Weekender challenge, covering an impressive distance of 1,277 miles.
Moreover, we raised £10,000 for the UNICEF Turkey and Syria earthquake appeal in just a single weekend. We are proud to have been able to make such a positive difference in the lives of those affected by these disasters.
In 2023 we have achieved a 65% reduction in the health and safety incident rate, and our target is to eliminate serious incidents.
The incident rate in the UK was improved through training and awareness. Key members of staff were enrolled on a 3-day IOSH training course. The outcome of this training resulted in several health and safety updates including a sitewide noise assessment at our Feltham site and risk assessments undertaken at all UK sites.
A Health and Safety committee has been created to discuss near misses, incidents and suggested improvements. The health and safety policy has been updated to reflect improvements. We hope to continue improving the incident rate across the Group, taking such measures as COSHH governance training and rolling out internal incident reporting systems.
We remain committed to upholding diversity, including gender, cultural background, and level of competence.
We believe that a diverse workforce brings a wealth of perspectives and experiences that can enrich our work environment and enhance our ability to achieve our goals. Therefore, we actively seek to recruit, retain, and promote individuals from a wide range of backgrounds and experiences to help us build a more inclusive and productive workplace.
One woman serves on our board of six, and women run three of our twelve subsidiary businesses. 36% of our employees globally are female, and our aim is to continue to promote women to senior positions across the Group.
Our Group newsletter, The Pulse, contains a regular Headspace feature that has included information on topics such as menopause and anxiety. In doing so, we hope to promote understanding of areas that might affect our people, and help to support them.
We have looked at different working patterns where appropriate, with the 4-day week that was implemented at ALC last year resulting in employees feeling more engaged. TMP will also trial a 4-day week where output, consumption and employee feedback will be monitored for three months to measure its effectiveness.
We have continued to roll out mental health training and in 2023 10 people around the Group have undergone mental health first aider training to raise awareness and develop an understanding of mental health. We plan to expand this training out to more employees in 2024.
Employees have access to a 24-hour advice and information line where they can receive counselling, legal information and information on health issues. There is also an app available that can help employees track their mood, access breathing exercises and gain access to CBT. Information about this support is displayed on company noticeboards.
Supporting Mental Health
Dewhurst Ltd was the proud sponsor of The Lift Industry Mental Health Charter’s football tournament in May 2023, to support awareness in our industry.
On World Environment Day, multiple Dewhurst Group locations participated in a range of environmental initiatives. These activities included tasks such as litter picking, planting, donating food, supporting local communities, promoting resource conservation and recycling. Our target is to carry out environmental and social initiatives at all sites every quarter.
We continue to regularly engage with our local communities and schools, for example we hosted a Spark Charity insight day at our Feltham site in August, helping to support disadvantaged teenagers with their career aspirations.
In 2024 we will streamline and enhance our induction process, and all new joiners will receive training on our mission, vision and values, and sustainability. These training sessions will also be mandatory for all existing employees to complete.
We will be updating our performance review strategy across the group in 2024. Training will have a large focus within the strategy and requests will be encouraged, as we would like to see investment in the growth and development of our people in 2024. Managers will be encouraged to have open conversations with their teams on skills and knowledge gaps on a regular basis. We aim to have a culture of internal development to retain company knowledge and reduce external recruitment.
