A Culture Fit For Purpose

As a food and facilities management services provider Sodexo relies on its people. Mark Goodyer, HR Director, Sodexo UK & Ireland says it is the teams on client sites’ that make the true difference, so an engaged workforce is vital for delivering excellence.

In a competitive job market, we want to attract and retain the best employees and we want them to be engaged. Employee engagement should be a high on every organisation’s agenda and developments in HR and technology allow us to flip traditional models of engagement on their head, building from the individual rather than a top-down approach.

Our role is to understand what helps individuals feel truly valued at work in order to determine where they can deliver value for the business but also themselves, through meaningful work. If we can encourage and empower individuals to be their true authentic self in the workplace, rather than feeling they have to hide aspects of who they are to ‘fit-in’, diversity and inclusion challenges will be so much easier to address not only within our own businesses but also more broadly within society.

This is why engagement should be considered as part of the day-to-day philosophy of an organisation. It is about genuine and impactful relationships that support employees throughout their career development. It’s about managers and leaders offering engaging ways of working, and employees feeling they belong and are making a positive difference.

Whilst we can take steps to measure engagement and provide tools and initiatives to improve it, the responsibility does not lie solely within the HR division. It is our job to encourage, support, educate and empower managers, supervisors and other directors to put engagement at the top of their agenda.

From changes to working practices, to extending health and wellbeing initiatives, simply listening and responding to employee needs and opinions can make individuals feel more involved and more secure, regardless of what is happening externally.

There is a clear relationship between employee engagement, productivity and company profitability. There is no doubt that taking steps to increase engagement has a positive impact on the others. With all of the external concerns, there couldn’t be a more important time to push engagement and the broader HR priorities higher up the broader business agenda.

Whilst we can’t control the direction of our political or economic landscapes, we certainly have the power to support our colleagues. As business leaders we need to hold ourselves accountable for driving change. Earlier this year we took the progressive step to enhance the benefits we offer our colleagues and by doing so we are realising our ambition to offer an inclusive, equitable and flexible first culture to help all our colleagues, not just those with caring responsibilities, to balance work and personal commitments they may have in a way that suits them.

Attract with purpose

With the ongoing skills shortages it is clear that apprenticeships should play a more vital role. Apprenticeships give both individuals and organisations additional skills, bring in and train new talent and allow existing staff of all ages and backgrounds to retrain or upskill.

As long-time advocates of the opportunities that employment-based education can offer Sodexo has committed to consider all vacancies and job roles as apprenticeships wherever possible. This has led us having apprentices from a diverse range of backgrounds and age groups who all offer different skills.

I believe that apprenticeships should be part of an organisation’s commitment to lifelong learning for future and current employees. They allow staff to develop skills, knowledge and behaviours central to the role or future role that they are in or about to undertake. This means that existing and future skills needed by any organisation can be delivered by a well-developed confident workforce.

Apprenticeships are a fantastic way for people to learn new skills, launch their careers, or reskill if they are seeking a fresh challenge. Learning should be a lifelong journey, and apprenticeships offer valuable opportunities for growth at every stage.

Grow from within

Apprenticeships are just one specific form of bringing skills and expertise into an organisation, but there are other ways. One of the most sustainable ways of combating the skills shortage is filling open positions from within the company through upskilling and learning and development.

However, to grow the internal talent pool, organisations must invest in professional development programmes that provide employees with the necessary training to advance in the company. Offering reskilling and upskilling opportunities through learning, development and mentoring programs is key to internal mobility, employee retention and long-term success.

At Sodexo, 80% of our managers are promoted internally; this is because we are passionate about supporting career development and facilitating talent deployment, and offer a wide range of learning solutions to support the personal and professional development of all our colleagues.

To become more resilient to skills and labour shortages, organisations must also retain the long-serving and knowledgeable workers it already has. The sooner leaders can stem the tide of employee departures and increase retention levels, the better positioned the company will be for ongoing success.

Therefore, companies need to work hard at creating a culture that encourages people to stay and enjoy where they work. That doesn’t mean just through pay. Practices such as giving employees the ability to spend three days supporting their chosen charities, flexible working, increased annual leave, employee wellbeing and opportunities to learn and develop are attractive benefits to workers.

At Sodexo people are at the heart of our business and we remain committed to supporting them as much as we can, it is our belief that our people should feel they belong to a company where they can act with purpose and thrive in their own way.