Issue 16 • September 2014

Frontline news… Engagement, Good to Great and grab a grand!

PASSION • RESPECT • INNOVATION • DRIVE • ENGAGEMENT

IMAGES MASTER_STAFF.indd 1

28/11/2013 08:03

THANK YOU!

Thank You CARD_FIN.indd 1

15/01/2014 10:06

1. Do you know a friend, ex-colleague or family member who would love to work with us in a salaried role?2. Then recommend them to us!3. If they’re successful, you could earn up to £1,000 (tax free) for simply recommending them!Want to know more go to: www.ourhub.co.uk or www.mbcareersandjobs.com/nameandclaim

earn up to £1,000

Hi, lan here again!Susan mentioned how engaged our Good to Great team members are in her Your Say summary – you may or may not have heard of Good to Great? It’s the biggest change journey for you and 38,000 other Frontline employees across M&B – with 750 businesses already on the journey with 850 to go!What’s different?4 Effective weekly scorecard team meetings4 Working to four scorecard priorities and targets 4 Ability to make key decisions to grow the business togetherWhat’s an ‘effective meeting’?4 A clear agenda and objectives4 Where your GM gets together with his or her team to review their performance against

their scorecard targets4 Where the team takes ownership of ‘next steps’ to improve performance - before the next

meeting

I decided to get out there and witness our biggest change journey that will grow profitable sales through engaged Frontline teams who live the PRIDE values, supported with the right skills and information, and trusted to make great decisions for their guests – making us GREAT!I visited the amazing team at Farmers Arms, Preston with Crown Carveries Retail Business Manager, Matt Oliver to be part of their scorecard meeting.

Seeing the following values come-alive during a Good to Great meeting was truly breathtaking:4 PASSION – absolute dedication to moving the business to GREAT using Good to Great principles4 RESPECT – listening with courtesy to colleagues4 INNOVATION – fresh ideas to drive results4 DRIVE – stretching, but realistic targets4 ENGAGEMENT – a collaboration of team members, GM and RBM working together to

move to Great!If you’re not yet on the Good to Great journey, pop to an M&B business that’s on the journey near you – seeing is believing!What matters is what the team think – this is what they said...

What should it mean to you?

Saving for Christmas or a

Wedding? Time to ‘Grab a Grand’!The proof is in the pudding!

Luke Billingsley, GM of the Sharmans Cross,

Solihull has Name & Claimed three times.

He has decided to use his £3,000 for his wedding

next year – much to his fiancée’s delight!

Welcome to issue 16 of Frontline News.

There’s so much to tell you, we’ve had to increase the

length of the poster!

Three things:

1. Your Say 2014 – why having Your Say really matters

2. Good to Great – my experience in Crown Carveries

3. Name & Claim – how you can earn an extra £1,000

Hi!

Enjoy!

You said - we’re doing...

Allows us to have a weekly catch-up and share our ideas as

a team. At each meeting there is a chance to learn something you may

not know. I love the fact everyone is listened to and has an opinion - no

matter what position you are in the company. I also enjoy the small

tasks our RBM asks us to get involved with – keeping us motivated. I

think Good to Great is helping to progress the Farmers Arms to be a

great restaurant.

Katie, Team member I love the engagement – the team gets together and

shows a real passion for the business. It’s made my team realise

that Farmers is their business and not only does their contribution

matter, it makes a huge difference to how we do things. We all sit

together and come up with various ideas of how to improve the

business. The team owns the ideas and are excited to see how

they progress. Jana, General Manager

PASSION • RESPECT • INNOVATION • DRIVE • ENGAGEMENT

Frontline Colleagues,In the August edition of Frontline news I gave you our headline engagement and response results. It now gives me great pleasure to share

the detailed results with you.

1. The results are really encouraging and there is much to celebrate. Overall, we’re making good

progress which demonstrates our commitment to our people

2. Your General Manager (GM) will have the biggest impact on your engagement. Your GM should share

the results with you - celebrate what’s going well and build on it, keep an eye on the ambers and agree

action plans for any reds

3. The role of our Retail Support Centre, in Birmingham, is to provide the right environment, culture,

systems and tools for your Retail Business Manager (RBM) and General Manager to flourish

Overall engagement and who led the way?It’s the leadership you receive from your General Manager that will make the biggest impact on how engaged (happy) you

are at work. Here are the overall engagement scores:

Well done to you all; these are excellent results that you should feel very proud of!

What we need to work onThe Executive team is getting together to study the results in more detail. Here’s what we’ll be discussing:

Retail Team Members

All average scores for the big six engagement questions are over 75 and are on par with last year. Average means some

businesses are scoring very highly and some are not. This is why your individual business reports (and action plans) are

critical.

Q. How do we increase the number of action plans that our GMs submit?

General Managers

Four of the big six engagement questions scored over 80 but two dropped back this year:

Q. How do we improve the recognition that GMs receive?

Q. How can we ensure that more GMs to fulfil their career ambitions with us?

Our engagement plan In our People Plan we’ve laid out how we’ll achieve higher engagement scores over the next two years and beyond.

We’ve just completed an extensive study about why people enjoy working at M&B. What matters to everyone here is:

feeling safe and secure; part of a successful team and a friendly company; nurtured, developed and cared for; work fits

into life; rewarded. We now know for sure what our people need from us and whilst most elements are covered in the

People Plan, this will be a key focus for our leaders going forward.

Here are the highlights of what we’re doing and what we’ve achieved in our People Plan:

Attracting the best talent to M&B

s Over 1,000 RBMs and GMs have been through recruitment skills training all about hiring the best people

s Some GMs have been grouped together in clusters to recruit team members on a geographic basis and this has really

helped us attract some fantastic people. It’s also helped GMs to share candidates and prepare succession plans.

Nurturing and developing our people

s A new induction has been launched to give new team members the best start possible

s We have expanded our Accredited Coach and Coaching Ambassador network and given every GM,

together with many AMs and KMs, the opportunity to learn Coaching Foundations

s Over recent months regular performance reviews have now commenced with all team members;

these reviews are specifically linked to their competencies

s We currently have over 1,500 learners on a vocational programme and have pledged to take on a

further 1,000 over the next 2 years

s The GMs and AMs on our Foundation Degree are coming to the end of their first year and their

feedback has been excellent

s We’re continuing to focus on kitchen skills training and capability:

l We have developed an industry leading Kitchen Productivity & Food Quality workshop which all Frontline leaders

have attended or will be attending

l We have developed a comprehensive Kitchen Skills Training Programme, ‘STAR’, which supports our commitment

to young people, apprenticeships and provides our kitchen teams with a best in class training solution. STAR is

currently in operation within Country Pubs, Castle, Heartland and Harvester and will roll out to all brands from 28

September onwards

Rewarding and recognising our people

More and more employees are taking advantage of our Pickaperk benefits package and

spending passed the £1million milestone in June

s Last year we launched our ‘Recognising You’ scheme where General Managers across M&B can

officially recognise employees when they achieve key service milestones from 1 year to 45 years

and personalise ‘Thank You’ cards to recognise hundreds of employees who demonstrate living our

values and also award pre-loaded gift cards. So far, line managers have issued over 1,700 gift cards

to employees to the value of nearly £30,000

s It’s thanks to your feedback in previous surveys that we launched employee discount and this

year has seen us switch from two paper vouchers per period to unlimited online vouchers with

a code which can be used as many times as you choose (with the exception of Christmas Day!)

Around a quarter of our employees have signed up so far so please continue to drive this. Our team appreciate it

and it also drives sales – a win win for all

s Nearly 7,000 employees will receive free shares this year

Ensuring our best people – stay with us!

s The number of employees leaving is decreasing steadily year on year. In fact retail team

member turnover is at a historic low.

s Around 80% of management vacancies are filled by internal candidates

s M&B achieved Top 100 Graduate Employer status in 2014

s Our reputation as a good employer – as reviewed on the job equivalent of TripAdvisor

called Glassdoor – is one of the highest in the industry

Next steps...

Action planningThe reason we talk about action planning so much is because we’ve already proven there’s a robust link between taking

action and improving business performance. Where teams created an action plan last year, their scores increased on

average by +4.1 points. Those who didn’t create an action plan saw their scores fall by an average of -0.6 points.

+ Your GM has your feedback

+ You and your team will have an action planning meeting with your GM by mid

September. At this meeting you and your GM will agree an amazing plan to make a real

difference – following your feedback.

Finally, I am delighted to say that the highest scoring questions are about how guest focused we

are. Our Good to Great journey is all about putting our guests at the heart of everything we

do and a score in the high 80s is proof indeed that the plan is working. Well done everyone!

Once again, many thanks for your support and I wish you and your teams every success as we

head into our new financial year from 28 September.

Susan Martindale

HR and Operations Director

RETAIL TEAM ENGAGEMENT (which also includes our

deputies, assistants, kitchen managers and team leaders) is

at 78 – up slightly on last year. All of our brands scored in

excess of 72. However, the following led the way:

GM ENGAGEMENT, although a high score, is down

1.4 on last year at 80.6. All of our GM groups by brand

scored in excess of 72. However, the following led the

way:

81.1 81.0 80.785.8 85.8 85.5