Employee Re-sourcing & Development Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Employee Re-sourcing & Development - Essay Example Since January Safeway have refocused their activities on managing change and over 120 staff members have participated in these courses to date. Safeway's normal skills training for store staff, launching apprenticeship programmes for butchers, fishmongers and florists. Additionally, 210 bakers completed the craft baking NVQ, while over 7,000 of Safeway's people have now received craft skills and systems training at one of Safeway's three regional training centres. (Beardwell, 2001-58-62) Delivering the best customer service continues to be a high priority. During the year Safeway extended Safeway's Star Service programme to include a new initiative designed to help Safeway become the "friendliest store in town". Safeway's people in stores have been asked to concentrate on "smiling, greeting, helping and thanking" customers every time they have contact with them. High standards are expected and by the end of the year independent monitoring showed that over 90% of Safeway's stores were either meeting or close to meeting all of these targets. (Corbridge, 1998, 78-86) Safeway employs approximately 85,000 people in stores, depots and offices across the UK. Through Safeways employment policy Safeway aim to provide fair treatment for all colleagues, invest in their development, protect their well-being and keep them both informed and involved. In 2004/05 Safeway defined 12 employment and training targets to ensure that these aims were achieved. For example: Safeway encourages open and honest communication through a range of initiatives. Safeway conduct a 6-monthly survey of Safeways colleagues, "Survey for Everyone", which allows every individual to give feedback on their job, their manager, their location, Safeway as a place to work and their perception of the Company's performance. At local level, teams of colleagues are empowered to take action on anything arising from the survey results. Other initiatives such as focus groups and Safeways intranet facility ("Grapevine") are referred to in the Chief Executive's review. Safeway have established a Colleague Council for the Hayes site, with representatives elected from all Head Office divisions. The meetings have opened up a valuable channel for two-way communication with employees to discuss how Safeway can improve the way in which Safeway work together. Such has been their success that Safeway have already begun to roll this out to other areas of the business. Safeway's centralized recruitment centre at Warrington is now fully operational and receives an average of over 11,000 hotline calls per week. Safeway also receive over 800 job applications through Safeways website every week. Safeway have enjoyed ongoing success in working with the Investors in People framework, with several divisions achieving recognition and a significant proportion of Safeways store colleagues working towards accreditation. Storebrand Investment's assessment of 86 retailers worldwide in 2005, which included Safeway in the top 30% "best in class" of its sample. Safeway are pleased with these results and will continue to work with all these