Employer of the Year: Morrisons skills up its staff for a better future

Morrisons completes a hat-trick of wins as the industry’s best employer. Over the past year, it has introduced the UK’s biggest-ever people and service skills training programme, with more than 110,000 staff undergoing its H.O.T. training programme.

It has also put 5,000 of its managers through a new Coaching for Performance programme and invested £5m in developing new family-friendly HR policies and into the creation of the Morrisons Plus Retirement Club.

All this had a dramatic impact on the business, with 5,500 shop floor staff being promoted into managerial positions, a new record low in absences and a significant fall in staff turnover. Indeed Morrisons estimates that these efforts resulted in a £12m benefit to its bottom line.

No wonder the judges described the retailer’s submission as “the stand out entry”, adding that it had “gone the extra mile, in training in particular”.