Our Culture, Our Business

The national lockdowns resulted in 27% fewer consumers having accidents in the year, reducing demand for our services, and the ‘Stay at home’ order issued by the Government in March 2020 required a significant adjustment to our ways of working. 

Our overriding priority was the continued health, safety and wellbeing of our people and supporting our customers and business partners through those unprecedented times.

This is the best culture I’ve worked in.

Throughout all of these changes, our people demonstrated great resilience, drive and positivity. Their actions, underpinned by our strong company culture and Values, have proved to be a significant asset of the Group.

Transparent and clear communications

Transparent and open communications were a theme throughout the year. We held monthly online Biscuit Briefings where all staff received updates on the business from our leadership team and engaged in Q&A sessions. We also introduced Weekly Welcomes - a Monday morning video introduction to the week, delivered by a member of the wider management teams, providing detailed information on business activities, advice and a challenge to inspire and encourage our staff.

Our overriding priority was the continued health, safety and wellbeing of our people and supporting our customers and business partners through those unprecedented times.

We’ve gone through tough times recently with COVID-19, but the company has really shown that it truly lives its values. Communication has been transparent, frequent and honest.

Staff wellbeing

The wellbeing of our colleagues is paramount and staff were encouraged to share their status through weekly check-in meetings with their managers and colleagues. Regular reminders of the support available from the Group, including access to an Employee Assistance Programme, Mental Health First Aiders and Wellness Action Plans were delivered via a number of vlogs signposting staff to any support they might need.

Online yoga and wellbeing sessions were also introduced to support our staff’s physical and mental wellbeing while ensuring that they had regular opportunities to take breaks away from work.

Training and development

In response to colleagues informing us that they were inexperienced with both homeworking and managing remote teams, we developed two training courses to support staff – one focused on mental health and wellbeing and the second to help colleagues become more effective at working and managing remotely.

These courses had a significant impact on team performance and wellbeing.

Our resilient and engaged workforce

Despite the challenges of 2020, we were very pleased with the results of our annual staff survey: 

• engagement levels remained high at 77.2% 1 for the year against a UK Gallup average of 17%. 
• scored over 75% for the third consecutive year 
• our people are amongst the most engaged in the UK.