Employee development
Macfarlane Group believes that each employee should be provided with the opportunity to realise their potential. Through several mechanisms, including Career Development Plans, apprenticeship schemes and the Macfarlane Leadership Programme, we provide a platform for personal development and career enhancement whilst also ensuring, through structured training, that employees have the correct skills and knowledge to effectively fulfil their role.
The significant developments in technology within Macfarlane Group over the past two years have enabled us to enhance virtual training programmes, supporting our ability to engage all employees in their development no matter where they are geographically located. The Group has provided an average of 16 hours of training per employee in 2021, an increase on previous years (2020: 10 hours).
Diversity
The gender breakdown of Directors, Senior Managers and other Group employees at the year-end is shown below:
Employee engagement
Our aim as a business is to be an inclusive employer of choice. The successful engagement of our employees is not only critical to us achieving this aim but also in ensuring the overall success of the business.
Excellent colleague communication continues to be a key area of focus. We have a framework of internal communication channels which seek to inform, engage and inspire individuals on matters of potential interest to them alongside wider business performance.
We encourage the engagement of every colleague to ensure the delivery of an outstanding service to our customers. This is achieved through a number of tools including business update sessions run by our CEO, functional forums, regular structured meetings, focus groups, informal review meetings and employee surveys. These methods, along with individual one-to-one discussions, provide opportunities for individuals to engage in two-way dialogue covering topics such as the overall well-being of our employees in addition to business and personal performance.
The Group-wide implementation of Microsoft Teams has improved the level of connectivity across the business. Platforms such as this, along with tools such as Yammer, will enable us, to continue to widen our feedback and engagement channels.
Employee Wellbeing
Inspiring and enabling our colleagues to fulfil their potential starts with supporting their overall well-being. We are passionate about creating a culture where all our colleagues feel able to seek support and have access to helpful resources. Throughout the year we raised awareness of mental ill health and encouraged all our colleagues to understand that mental health is an issue for everyone.
Guides, support tools and online training have been made available to all employees with the aim of creating a healthy, supportive working environment. A full Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) is available 24 hours a day to all our colleagues with Mental Health First Aiders available for support in the workplace.
As a Group we understand how important a healthy home life is to an individual’s well-being. Flexible working practices, including hybrid working, are adopted whenever possible to support the ability of employees to manage the demands of both work and home.
Gender Pay Gap
Macfarlane Group has previously reported its Gender Pay Gap information for the snapshot date 5 April 2020. As with many organisations there was an impact of furlough on the calculations used to produce the data However, this was not significant for Macfarlane as the number of males and females placed on furlough were similar.
The report showed men’s mean hourly rate to be 5.9% higher than women’s and women’s median hourly rate to be 4.6% higher than men. As with previous years the median pay gap in favour of women is reflective of our sales function being predominantly female, while the lower earning band of employees in production and logistics is predominantly male.
Macfarlane Group is a progressive company operating in a traditionally male oriented sector. We continue to engage in initiatives that promote a career in Logistics and Production to those in under-represented groups, and our focus on this area will enable us to build toward having a more diverse organisation in future years.
Macfarlane Group Gender Pay Gap information can be found on our website (www.macfarlanegroup.com).
