07
bidfood.co.uk/sustainability
Our principles
Our communities Awards
07
Employee engagement
The past couple of years in the UK have been
generally labelled the 'Great Resignation', with huge
numbers of people leaving their pre-pandemic jobs
and searching for greater reward, purpose and
motivation elsewhere. The hospitality sector is no
exception and for many businesses, it has been a
huge challenge to retain existing employees and
attract new talent. The preference for flexible/
hybrid working arrangements is a challenge for
any foodservice wholesaler, given that the majority
of roles are operational and necessitate being at
depots, with volume and timings driven by peaks
and troughs of customer demand. Given the
challenge of this changing context, understanding
and improving the engagement of our people is
more important than ever.
To measure engagement and gather employee
feedback, we run an annual employee survey which
explores many facets of our employees' experience
with us. This year, we had an 85% response rate and
scored 83% employee engagement, which given
the extreme challenges we have been through as a
business and industry, is a huge credit to everyone
that contributes towards making Bidfood a great
place to work, no matter what challenges they are
faced with.
To help our managers, we launched our Values
in Practice, bringing to life the behaviours that
support our corporate values. We also designed
business-wide engagement competitions and have
created accessible resources to help managers
create the best possible environment for their
teams. But most importantly, we are listening to our
employees and taking action on what they tell us
will make a difference to their working lives. One
area where we have seen the greatest improvement
is our managers helping people to develop, having
identified that personal development is such a key
driver of engagement. We now have 70% of people
responding positively to that question.
One of our key drivers of engagement from the last
two employee surveys has been health and
wellbeing. As a result, the Senior Leadership Team
have committed to focusing on improving health and
wellbeing provision across the business. This report
outlines some of the initiatives we've implemented
as part of that strategy.
Our people. Our mission
We invest in and care for
our people, attract future
talent and continue to be
recognised as a great
place to work.
Looking after
our employees