Our People

Dairy Crest is committed to providing an inclusive working environment where everyone feels valued and respected and has the opportunity to progress.

We recognise that people treated and rewarded fairly are more loyal and are more likely to champion fresh ideas which help to improve our working practices which in turn deliver commercial benefit and ultimately shareholder value.

Our dedicated learning and development team works across the business to ensure that the right development opportunities are available to the whole workforce from line operators and factory team leaders through to finance managers and senior directors.

In the dairy sector, as in the UK food industry as a whole, there is a shortage of food scientists and engineers. To help tackle this problem and to ensure that Dairy Crest is operationally fit for the future, we have continued to invest in our technology and engineering apprenticeship schemes which were launched in 2011 and 2012 respectively.

At our new Innovation Centre at Harper Adams University in Shropshire we support undergraduate students studying a food science related subject. The food science placement gives them the opportunity of getting hands on experience working on product and packaging innovation and is in addition to our sponsorship of places at the Reading and Nottingham Universities ‘sixth form summer schools’.

Joining any big business can be daunting; to ensure new recruits get off to the best possible start and receive a comprehensive overview of the Company, all new starters are invited to participate in our group induction programme. Over the course of this financial year 792 new starters availed themselves of the programme. This course ensures they understand our business strategy, our vision and the values to which we operate that have been the foundation of our success.

Once on-board all staff, where appropriate, can attend face-to-face development courses and via our e-learning portal can participate in online courses ranging from health and safety through to IT training. Since it was launched in 2010 over 3,000 people have logged onto the system, with over 8,000 courses having been completed.

It has, however, also been a challenging year for many Dairy Crest staff. Over the course of the last 12 months we have restructured our business to ensure we are better placed to drive growth and create a more integrated, efficient supply chain. Where these changes have resulted in the reduction of roles, for example the necessary but regrettable decision to close our creamery at Crudgington and several milk depots, we have supported staff with a range of tools and services which have helped them find alternative roles inside and outside the Company. Indeed, this supportive approach is now included in our corporate responsibility pledges.

To make sure we retain and develop our talent, we use our annual appraisal system to identify employees with high career development potential and invite them to join our talent programme. In 2014 39 took up the offer of participating in the programme which includes mentoring by senior staff, psychometric assessment and career workshops.

By way of emphasising our commitment to retaining talent and staff, this year we introduced several new corporate responsibility pledges with the aim of increasing focus on this key area. New pledges include increasing the percentage of staff who have over five years’ experience, and increasing the percentage of roles filled internally.

Taken as a whole we believe the investment we have made in recruiting, retaining and rewarding our staff has helped us maintain a turnover rate of around 13%, an absence rate of less than 3% and ensured that over a quarter of our employees have chosen to participate in our sharesave scheme.

A successful and happy workforce is one that is involved and engaged in the business. As well as striving to continually improve our score in staff surveys we also make sure that employees not only know what is going on but that they are the first to know what is going on. To help achieve this we provide staff with a weekly news round-up, monthly business performance reports, a staff website and we run company road shows that all employees are invited to attend. Finally, to safeguard employees against bullying and harassment at work and to also ensure that bribery and corruption are never tolerated, we have formal policies in place and a confidential staff helpline to provide direct support and guidance.

Being valued and recognised at work is important. Our aim is to not only reward staff fairly for the work they do through a competitive remuneration package but to also ensure that they too share in our commercial successes. To help achieve this almost all staff are part of a bonus or incentive scheme which is linked to either personal, site and/or Company performance.

To encourage a team atmosphere and to be better at rewarding success in the workplace we have a reward and recognition scheme in place whereby any member of staff can nominate another for a job well done and the best performing team in the Company is formally recognised. Despite a smaller workforce we are pleased to report that there was an increase in the number of staff successfully nominated up from 551 in 2013/14 to 618 in 2014/15. The 2014 team of the year award was presented to staff from our Frome site for the work they did to achieve top marks for a Food Standards audit from a leading retailer.

To help colleagues save their money outside of work in July 2014 we launched a new, bespoke Dairy Crest benefits website which provides colleagues with access to a valuable range of discounts on products and services. By March 2015 over 1,500 members of staff had signed up to the website.

We believe that for people to be the most productive, they need to achieve an appropriate balance in their commitment to the workplace and their home life. Any employee regardless of their position, location or role should feel that they are treated flexibly in their ways of working according to business needs. We wish to have a fully diverse workforce as we recognise that people from different backgrounds, experiences and abilities bring fresh ideas and innovations that improve our business. Employees will be encouraged to reach their full potential regardless of their age, gender, marital status (including civil partnerships), disability, nationality, colour, ethnic origin, sexual orientation or religious affiliation. Dairy Crest does not tolerate discrimination or harassment on any of these grounds. To help us achieve our aims our polices include the right to apply for flexible working hours, a sabbatical, support with taking time off to study, and we provide maternity pay above the statutory minimum and full pay during paternity leave.

Following the creation of a new diversity working group in 2014, which is made up of volunteers from all parts of the business and chaired by our Group Supply Chain Director, the key areas the business will be focusing on over the next 12 months will include driving diversity through recruitment and promotion, increasing the number of female managers and providing language support to workers where their first language is not English. In addition to coming top of the Business in the Community Index 2015, of which diversity is a key part, we were also pleased to be named by Waitrose as the overall winner of their prestigious ‘treating people fairly’ supplier award.

As a progressive employer we recognise and respect the positive role that trade unions can play in the development of our employees and our business. Indeed both Dairy Crest and the Unions, Usdaw and Unite, agree the importance of working together towards long term employment security and wherever possible avoid redundancy though redeployment. In our true working partnerships, we strive to achieve a genuine sharing of information and openness.