Safestore and Our People

Colleague engagement

We believe that engaged colleagues, who feel valued by our business, are the foundation of our customer-focused culture.

Our ‘Make the Difference’ people forum, launched in 2018, is a formal workforce advisory panel, which enables frequent opportunities for us to hear and respond to our colleagues.

Our network of 15 ‘People Champions’ collate questions and feedback from their peers across the business and put them to members of the Executive Committee.

Our people forum provides a listening culture, enabling high levels of consultation. Innovation and ideas now come from every level.

We drive change and continuous improvement in responding to the feedback we receive, via our internal communication channels and back through our network of People Champions.

Recently, our People Champions have helped us to continue our awareness-raising activities and communication through a selection of a broad range of topics for discussion on Yapster, our internal social media platform. The aim is to appreciate our diversity, by recognising and celebrating festivals and events, as well as individuals, and to create a safe space for sharing and discussion. In addition, we use Yapster to highlight local successes and recognition between stores and regions with strong links made to Safestore’s alignment to the SDGs.
 

Health and safety

Safestore strives to meet and, wherever possible, exceed best practice through:

• regular and robust health and safety checks across our portfolio
• regular independent audits of sites, performed by our external health and safety consultants on a rolling programme, to ensure that procedures are followed and that appropriate standards are maintained
• ensuring all colleagues understand their responsibility for health and safety at Safestore. If a site is highlighted as falling below our health and safety standards, colleagues on site are urgently required to make improvements
• comprehensive compulsory health and safety training programmes for all colleagues
• regular Health and Safety Committee meetings to review issues, processes, policies, and actions. The Health and Safety Committee minutes are shared with both our Risk and Audit Committees
• accident reports to identify, prevent, and mitigate against potential risks managed using our online incident reporting systems. All reports are reviewed by the Health and Safety Committee to consider what preventative measures can be implemented

There were no fatal injuries, notices or prosecutions during the year ended 31 October 2022 in any part of Safestore operations.


 

Group health and safety statistics

Customer, contractor and visitor health and safety

Summary:

• 38 minor injuries were recorded over the past year, none of which were reportable under RIDDOR*.
• 3 minor injuries recorded to contractors and 35 to customers. No injuries recorded to visitors. 
• Injuries were recorded as 29 minor cuts, 7 bumps and bruises and 2 strains mainly relating to customers handling their goods

Year ended 31 October	2020	2021	2022
Number of stores	155	161	179
Customer, contractor and visitor movements	120,995	206,871	242,559
Number of minor injuries	36	46	38
Number of reportable injuries (RIDDOR)	0	0	1
RIDDOR per 100,000 CCV movements	0.0	0.0	0.4

Colleague health and safety

Summary:

• 26 minor injuries were recorded over the past year.
• No accidents/incidents was reportable under RIDDOR*.

Year ended 31 October	2020	2021	2022
Average number of colleagues	658	648	751
Number of minor injuries	21	19	26
Number of reportable injuries (RIDDOR)*	2	1	0
AIIR** per 100,000 colleagues	303	154	0

 

* RIDDOR = Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences
** Annual injury incident rate = the number of reportable injuries ÷ average number of colleagues (x100,000)

We focus on offering simple, practical wellbeing initiatives, to support our colleagues to lead healthier and happier lives. We recognise that it is more important than ever for our colleagues to take care of themselves and their loved ones.

• Our new cash plan, provided by Medicash, provides colleagues with everyday reassurance on their health and wellbeing from top to toe, inside and out, from GP appointments to skin health checks and physiotherapy to counselling services.
• We have further promoted our Employee Assistance Programme(“EAP”) and other external support organisations such as Mind and Mental Health UK, providing our colleagues with expert guidance and support on everyday matters whenever they need it.
• We continue to work closely with our occupational health provider including provision of private counselling for colleagues in crisis requiring immediate support.
• We have increased the voucher limit on our popular Cycle to Work scheme.
• In addition to our ‘My Wellbeing’ webpage (our internal wellbeing resource hub), we have also communicated a number of wellbeing events and offers using our internal platform, Yapster. We believe good wellbeing communications promote and embed our positive and supportive working environment.

Learning and development

At Safestore, we have a strong focus on learning and development for all our colleagues, with a genuine commitment to building a culture of developing talent.

We use innovative methods of learning as well as traditional routes, with lots of support from our managers at all levels. The survey revealed that 93% of respondents knew how Safestore invests in learning and development. In 2022, we delivered over 30,000 hours of training.

All learning is evaluated, with skills development and practice gained through on-the-job supervision, regular coaching sessions, module sign-off, observation, feedback, and overall evaluation of how effective a programme of learning has been.

Across the Group, there are plenty of opportunities to put skills and knowledge into practice, with colleagues being given extra responsibilities to enable this to happen.

Our leaders understand the importance of succession planning. Talent management is sophisticated and transparent, with performance management channelled through our Values and Behaviours framework, to identify and support high potential individuals.

In the UK, both our Sales Consultant and Store Manager Development programmes continue to grow and upskill our colleagues. Everyone has the opportunity to discuss and agree their learning and development pathways with their line manager, and this is executed effectively. In our latest IIP survey, 88% of respondents stated that they have opportunities to learn at work.

We were also delighted that our Store Manager Development programme, now in its sixth year, has a record of 18 new participants for 2022. Funded by the Apprenticeship Levy this programme provides the opportunity to complete a Level 3 Management and Leadership apprenticeship, with the additional opportunity to complete an Institute of Leadership and Management (“ILM”) qualification.

In addition, all nine participants of our Senior Leadership Development programme (‘LEAD Academy’) successfully completed their Level 5 Management and Leadership apprenticeship; six of those participants
were awarded Distinctions.

Furthermore, we have re-launched our Graduate Programme, with our first intake commencing in October 2022, providing an opportunity for newly qualified graduates to build their skill set and experience, resulting in a career with Safestore.
 

Financial wellbeing

We understand that the current cost of living crisis is having a significant impact on personal finances. As part of Safestore’s wider wellbeing strategy, we are committed to doing what we can to ensure the financial wellbeing of our colleagues.

• During the Covid-19 pandemic, we enhanced Company sick pay (“CSP”) to alleviate the financial burden. We have taken the decision to make this enhancement permanent and all colleagues are now entitled to CSP from day one of employment.
• We applied our annual pay increase to all eligible colleagues a month early in March.
• We made exceptional payments totalling £1,000 to every colleague: £500 in December 2021 as a thank you for their contribution during the pandemic; and a further £500 cost of living payment in October 2022 to ease financial hardship over the winter period.
• We launched a ‘benefits portal’ on our intranet, creating a one-stop-shop for all colleagues to access information about which benefits are available to them and how to access them. Following feedback through our ‘Make the Difference’ people forum, we introduced an annual uniform allowance for all store colleagues.

Our workplace pension is provided by Scottish Widows, one of the UK’s leading workplace pension providers. We are pleased to offer eligible colleagues the opportunity to make their pension contributions through a salary sacrifice arrangement, recognised as the most tax-efficient way of making pension contributions.

In August, we opened entry into our 2022 Sharesave scheme, and are delighted that 48% of our colleagues now share in our success by being a member of at least one of our Sharesave schemes. This is further evidence of high levels of colleague engagement across the business.

Leadership

Our leaders bring out the best in our colleagues, motivating them to work together to achieve our shared goals and objectives.

We achieve this by keeping colleague-to-manager ratios low, enabling our leaders to invest time in encouraging and engaging our colleagues, forming genuine connections with their teams. This is evidenced by the exceptionally high leadership engagement score of 90%, achieved in our IIP survey.

Our active leaders are energetic and passionate, engaging in honest, open communication to connect with their colleagues. Our coaching culture encourages two-way feedback supporting both personal and professional growth, which is formalised through the setting of clear goals and expectations, reviewed bi-annually.
 

Values and behaviours

Our values are authentic, having been created by our colleagues. They are core to the employment life cycle and bring consistency to our culture. Our leaders have high values alignment enabling us to make the right decisions and maintain morale at all times, and this has been proven especially during the pandemic.

We are empowered to do the right thing, not necessarily the easiest. This enables us to feel comfortable challenging behaviours that are not in line with our values.

• We love customers – we deliver much more than storage; we provide solutions that exceed our customers’ expectations, and we expect our people to show appreciation of our customers and their businesses.
• We lead the way – we want people who talk with pride about Safestore, set themselves high standards and demonstrate passion for what they do.
• We have great people – everyone has a key role to play within Safestore and we need people who show respect for everyone, no matter their position. Our people drive their own performance and are keen to learn from others.
• We dare to be different – we want people that adapt to change and are willing to try new things. Part of daring to be different involves actively seeking feedback in order to develop new and existing skills.
• We get it – we want people to be clear on our vision and goals and, in turn, know what part they play in achieving them. 'We get it' is also about communicating in a clear, open and honest way to enable sound decision-making.