3rd June 2021

Van Elle maintains Investors in People Silver Award

Investors in People, the global benchmark for people management, has awarded Van Elle a Silver Award for the second time following a scheme of work to assess us against their framework.

Our HR team, led by Head of HR Hayley Smith, worked closely with Investors in People, to scrutinise the way we lead, support and improve things for our 500-strong workforce.

The staff engagement survey achieved a 52% response rate and revealed a 73% engagement score – an increase of 4% on the 2019 survey.

We improved on the previous survey results in all nine key indicators to achieve a score of 659 out of 900.

The areas with the highest recorded improvements were leading & inspiring people, living the organisations values & behaviours, recognising & rewarding high performance and empowering & involving people.

Among our highlights:

  • 93% of people agreed their role enables them to work well with others
  • 91% of people agree their work is interesting
  • 88% of people agree their work behaviours reflect our values
  • 87% of people share our values
  • 87% of people agree they’re encouraged to use their initiative in their job role

Hayley Smith said: “We are aware that there are still plenty of areas for improvement and our action plan will identify and give guidance to each division on how we can achieve this, but I’m really please that we made progress in all nine areas.

“I want to thank each member of staff who took part in the engagement survey and the interviews with the Investors in People team.”

According to the report we have an ‘established culture ripe for improvement’ and that is what Hayley and the Executive will focus on supporting through each division.

Hayley concluded: “Now our attention turns to addressing those areas which staff and Investors in People identified as key to improving things at Van Elle.

“We will focus on embedding our SITE values and recognising them in our People Award scheme, implement our HR and Training strategies and arrange for our senior leaders to meet and discuss our business objectives with our workforce.

“We will also implement, monitor and evaluate our new appraisals system, to gather data on the performance, progression, learning and development of our whole team.

“I hope we can count on the ongoing support of our team to help us drive this forward, for the benefit of all.”