FIVE PILLARS

4. INVESTING IN OUR PEOPLE

We want Matthew Algie to be a great place to work. To that end, protecting our employees’ human rights, improving their wellbeing, and promoting an inclusive working culture is always at the forefront of our minds. We also look for opportunities to help educate, motivate, and inspire young people in our community, on topics such as sustainability and innovation.

Our Progress

There were continued changes in our company leadership and structure in 2019-20 as we worked more closely across the Tchibo Coffee Service UK group with Tchibo Coffee Service and Capitol Foods.

The changes included additional resources in our HR function and plans to update and modernise our HR processes. As these changes have been taking shape we took the decision to temporarily suspended our employee engagement survey, with plans to introduce a new group-wide survey which will be better suited to our new way of working.

Overall, our performance indicators for 2019 demonstrated good progress:

  • Our average ratio of agency workers to permanent staff for 2019 was 1 in 51 employees. This shows a notable improvement from our 2016 baseline of 1 in 38.
  • No formal grievances were raised by employees.
  • 22% of our vacancies were filled internally, staying above our target of 20%.
  • Absenteeism due to sickness remained low at 2%, below our target threshold of 3%.
  • 13 employees benefitted from our Cycle2Work scheme, receiving discounted bikes and cycling accessories, and spreading the payments through a monthly salary sacrifice system.
  • Our commitment to providing training and employability skills to young people continued. We employed 3 apprentices across our IT, Finance and Engineering departments and offered 3 student placements in our QA and Technical department. Furthermore, we continued to work with partners to offer barista training to young people enrolled on employability programmes.

Details of our progress in 2020 are given in the Data and COVID-19 sections of this report.

Employee Health & Wellbeing

Our 2019 Sustainability Week campaign took place at the end of September. These campaigns are intended to equip and inspire employees to make more sustainable choices, helping them to look after their wellbeing whilst preserving and caring for our planet.

The week kicked off with “Mindful Monday”, an opportunity to communicate with employees about the importance of looking after their mental health. Over 50 employees were trained in mental health awareness.

Our engagement included:

  • Online training for Managers and Supervisors on mental health awareness. It focused specifically on how to promote positive mental health in the workplace, how to start a conversation with an employee you suspect has poor mental health, and some suggestions for supporting an employee with a mental health problem.
  • A similar training on mental health awareness was offered to employees more broadly in a seminar format.
  • Sharing helpful information and resources such as the Scottish Association for Mental Health’s “How to be Mentally Healthy at Work” Guide.

Complementary to our engagement on mental health, we also included information on good financial management and physical fitness in the week’s activities. Highlights included hosting the Glasgow Credit Union for information sessions; an 80s themed dance fitness session; and a lunchtime walk.

Free Fruit for Employees Every year since we started our annual Sustainability Week campaign back in 2015 we have used it as an opportunity to provide free fruit to employees at our Glasgow roastery. However, a partnership with a local vending supplier meant that we started providing free fruit for employees on a weekly basis in 2019.

Engaging Young People in Machine Innovation

In September 2019 the charity, SmartSTEMs, and recruitment company, Nine Twenty, came together to organise an inaugural Insp-Hire career fair at Glasgow Caledonian University, targeted at local children and their parents.

SmartSTEMs exists to increase engagement with STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) subjects in Scotland.

This event was an opportunity to educate, involve and inspire children through an introduction to the endless STEM career possibilities, with a particular focus on Industry 4.0, the trend towards automation and data exchange in manufacturing technologies and processes.

Our Coffee Systems Development team were delighted to be involved in this event as it was a fantastic opportunity to showcase the science and technology behind our coffee machine innovation projects.