Cottrills : Clients

Interview with Wickes Ltd

Wickes is one of the largest DIY retailers in the UK. Through its Wickes branded stores, the Group offers an extensive range of home improvement products to both DIY and trade customers. The Group’s key objectives for its Wickes business are to achieve broader coverage in its target market and for Wickes to be established as the destination store for home improvement.

Wickes reward their staff with loyalty awards for 5, 10, 15, 20, 25 and 30 years service.

Reward & HR Management Information Controller, Sara Davies, agreed to answer a few questions about their scheme.

How long have you been running a Long Service awards scheme?

The Loyal Service Awards programme has been around for a number of years in Wickes. The scheme was fully reviewed in 2003, this included policy changes and a change of provider.

How did you communicate the scheme to all your staff?

Each department was fully briefed on the new policy and the scheme is supported by ongoing articles in our quarterly company magazine. Each year we also hold a Long Service awards Lunch which celebrates the achievements of our colleagues with 15 years service or more.

You do not award gifts at levels that would usually be considered ‘Long Service’, why is this?

Similarly to other retailers, retaining colleagues for the first year of their employment with us can be a challenge. As a result we wanted to offer an award after 5 years to acknowledge that this is a real milestone for our business and recognise their loyalty.

How easy was it to set up you multi-level scheme?

Setting up the scheme with a number of levels was easy once we had determined the intervals when a colleague would receive an award. We established the levels of award and matched these to the business needs. Bringing in Cottrills to set up the administration and gift service was simple and the whole scheme was set up and launched promptly following the initial meetings.

Do you feel your loyalty scheme helps motivate staff?

As part of the measurement of our scheme we send out questionnaires to see what our colleagues think about the scheme, levels of service, etc. A good number of the returned questionnaires have remarks which show the scheme is motivational, for example, one lady wrote to us saying she really appreciated the 'thank you' for all her hard work and looked forward to reaching her next milestone with us.

Do you think your staff are less likely to leave your employment because of the introduction of reward schemes?

Reward schemes do make up an important part of a colleagues overall package. I think if you strive to create a well-balanced package which is appropriate to the workforce and well communicated then you can reduce your labour turnover and build a happier and more motivated team.

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