Iceland Foods and The Perfume Shop have been recognised for their focus on employee engagement.
The retailers were presented with employee engagement awards at ORC International’s annual employee engagement conference.
Both employers insist on the importance of both listening to employees and acting on feedback, and making it clear how staff can progress their careers through the organisation.
Iceland Foods achieved a response rate of 97% in its recent staff survey of more than 23,000 employees.
Mairi Probin, internal communications and engagement manager at Iceland Foods, said: “There’s a huge awareness in Iceland from the boardroom through to the staffroom about the importance of letting our employees have their say on a daily basis.
“We also make sure that we tell our people regularly and honestly about what is going on in the business, and show them very clearly how they can progress in the business if they want to.
“This approach makes excellent business sense for Iceland too. Our aim, when we emerge from these difficult economic times, is to have retained and developed a talented workforce that is really engaged with our business.”
The Perfume Shop held its first formal staff survey in 10 years in 2011, and achieved a response rate of 86%.
Michelle Fellows, HR director at the retailer, said: “It’s fantastic to have the formal benchmark of the staff survey to confirm that we are heading in the right direction, but we also listen to people informally on a continual basis and I think this is really necessary to keep people engaged within the business and with what we are trying to achieve.”
Kate Pritchard, director of employee research at ORC International, added: “These two organisations have provided us with some great examples of how excellent employee engagement works in practice.
“Engagement doesn’t need to be complicated or expensive, it just needs to respond to the needs of both the organisation and its employees in a timely and consistent way.
“The high engagement scores achieved by both Iceland Foods and The Perfume Shop certainly demonstrate this.”
Read more articles on employee engagement and motivation
