For a business like us that strives every day to be the best for our colleagues and customers, this is like reaching the summit of Everest or the World Cup finals.
We have joined a truly select club. A mere 7% of Investors in People’s 50,000 accredited organisations around the word have achieved Platinum.
Investors in People are acknowledged to be the leading global independent measure of how engaged your colleagues are. Their ambitions call for a movement that puts people first – ‘for the benefit of every person in every workplace, increased productivity across organisations, and a stronger, healthier and happier society’.
Signing up to Investors in People is a tremendous commitment in time and energy. You really have to believe in the worth of improving your team. For us, the value of investing in our people and the knock-on effect of this to improving our customer experience is well known across the business, so it’s a no-brainer that the time and investment is worth it.
The latest Gallup survey shows ‘around 90% of UK employees are not “enthused” about their work, placing the UK as one of the least engaged workforces in Europe’. The head of Reed, the employment agency, said at the start of 2025 that ‘the need to reinvigorate Britain’s workforce and address the pressing issue of low labour force participation is now more urgent than ever’.
?
However, building workplace engagement does not need to cost thousands. At a time when businesses are being squeezed by rises in National Insurance and higher operating costs innovation is key.
One of the things we feel most proud of is achieving IIP Platinum without an expensive change programme. Success has been employee-driven via initiatives such as our internal coaching programme, values handbook and high-performance mindsets.
We’re sharing our practical approach through “The Book of Involvement”, free to request here.
As you can tell, we’re incredibly proud of this but what is most important, is what benefit this brings to both our colleagues and customers. We’ve filmed some short clips of our colleagues talking about this. Our first episode is Gary & Marco from our Southam warehouse:
