Annual review Specsavers Annual Report LR Proof | Page 16

Helping our support
office teams succeed people: how they are doing, their career aspirations and
The people across our support teams globally are The Specsavers Grow our Own programme, now in its
instrumental in bringing the Specsavers partnership second year, supports around 70 high-potential support
to life – providing exceptional business services to t eam members (many of whom are identified through
our stores. the People Review process) globally. It is devoted to
ways in which we can help them be even better.
providing specific development activities, resources,
Dame Mary Perkins visits Specsavers in
Redditch, as store partners Gurdeep Bansal
and James Worton and their team are
accredited with Platinum Employer status.
The engagement, performance and retention of funding and coaching to help our current and future
our support office colleagues is directly influenced leaders reach their full potential. The scheme has
by the capability of their managers and leaders. already proved successful, as more than half of the
At Specsavers, we believe individuals in these 2016/17 intake moved into more senior or broader
critical roles make a real difference and, as such, roles upon completion of the programme. This year
leadership development continues to be high on we introduced a self-discovery tool to help guide
the agenda across all our regions, with a variety of participants in understanding their development needs
programmes on offer. and selecting the right bespoke development choices.
This year, we further evolved our offering to We strengthened our ability to recruit the
support leaders globally in developing their skills very best people, with the development of an
around four fundamental qualities of leadership, internal global resourcing model. Managing
all underpinned by change: leading self, leading recruitment in-house ensures we find the right
others, leading change and leading commercially. people with the most suitable skills and experience
We used these programmes as an opportunity to to support our long-term framework. Our resourcing
bring our global support office leaders together teams are functionally aligned with technical experts
through a series of blended learning (webinars, to support candidates through every step of the
face-to-face workshops, social media) as well as recruitment process.
regional events.
With our ever-growing desire and need to evolve as an
organisation, we developed a global change framework.
Use of our online learning management system, iLearn, As part of our ambition to be famous as a great place
continues to grow, with an average of 17,000 hours’ to work, we are delighted that 500 UK stores have
Designed to equip our teams for the future, it was
supported by the introduction of a development toolkit
now gained Platinum Employer status. Our externally- ‘Grow our Own gives us the room to stretch highlighting the skills required to embrace change with
accredited, bespoke scheme is designed to ensure our capabilities outside our usual comfort a growth mindset, and build resilience to continuous
members now manage their learning and development the very highest standard of reward, development, zone and explore things we thought evolution. We ran a pilot with our leadership population
online by logging into the system each month. Despite leadership and people practices are delivered in our were beyond our possibilities, but in via a series of webinars, and plan to cascade the
stores. The primary focus is to provide a consistently a supported learning environment, materials to all our teams in the coming year.
assisted learning, classroom offerings are still valuable. exceptional employee experience for all 18,000 of our surrounded by like-minded peers Around 2,100 people across our Australian and New store colleagues. Stores are assessed in five key areas from all corners of the business.’ Our global mobility framework enables us
Zealand region chose the face-to-face method last year, of people management, including recruitment and Grow our Own participant to offer international secondments to members
with 70% of those completing advanced-level training. induction, performance management and reward, of our support teams, wherever in the world they a
and learning and development. re. The opportunities for relocation either come
Helping our support
office teams succeed as a result of business-driven requirements,
online learning recorded every month in the UK alone.
More than 75% of Northern European store team
the advancement and convenience of technology-
The ongoing introduction of the very latest technology,
such as optical coherence tomography (OCT), into
such as a particular skills gap, or are self-initiated,
We are also passionate about supporting our leaders whereby an individual applies for, and is successful in
requirements. An example of ensuring that our teams and managers to identify and develop rising stars at fulfilling, a vacancy abroad. There are countless success
have the skills and expertise necessary to support Specsavers. An integral part of this is our ongoing stories of people who have remained in those countries
the introduction of these innovative services was the commitment to the People Review forums. Taking place post-secondment and gone on to receive long-term
bespoke development and successful completion of annually in all our regions, they offer us the opportunity residency, and we are currently supporting 30 people on
training for our new in-store Frame Styler app. to step back and have great conversations about our international secondments across all regions.
Specsavers’ stores necessitates ever-evolving training
14
15