M&S to roll out staff wellbeing initiatives

Marks and Spencer is to roll out a series of new health and wellbeing initiatives for employees in 2015.

In its Plan A Report 2014, published on 5 June, the retailer stated that it will:

• Establish measures and report on employee wellness to supplement the more traditional measures of employee engagement.
• Extend access to its health and wellbeing services and information to its international employees.
• Provide additional health services and policies to staff, including healthy eating, promoting exercise, mental health awareness and the ageing workforce.
• Set a target for, and increase levels, of flexible working, including job shares, flexitime and remote working.
• Extend nutritional labelling across all its UK cafes to make it easier for staff to manage healthy eating.

The new health and wellbeing programme is being designed using data from Marks and Spencer’s annual Your Say employee survey, which established a wellness benchmarking measurement of 81%.

Its Plan A Report also detailed a range of employee engagement and wellbeing activities that took place in the past year.

These included:

• Its annual weight loss challenge, in which more than 2,000 employees participanted.
• Its Big Beach Clean Up, which attracted more than 4,000 employee participants and its Bike24 cycle marathon relay event, which saw a further 1,300 take part.

Marc Bollard, chief executive officer, said: “Plan A is at the heart of our plans to become a sustainable, international, multi-channel retailer.

“It’s become a vital part of how we run our business, as well as helping us to maintain high levels of employee engagement and customer trust.

“I’m incredibly proud to see how Plan A has motivated employees, suppliers and customers and their communities to work together.”