People
People
We believe everyone has the right to be respected and treated fairly at work. We do the right thing, nurturing diverse talent and prioritising the health and safety and wellbeing of our people and partners.
Human Rights
Valuing human rights and championing fairness by preventing modern slavery within our supply chain and being a committed Living Wage Employer.
Target
- Maintain our status as a Living Wage Employer.
Progress and Focus Areas
- We maintained our Living Wage Foundation accreditation, reflecting the Group's commitment to ensuring all those who work directly or indirectly providing labour on our sites or within our offices are paid an independently calculated rate of pay, based on the actual cost of living. Further information about development of our human rights policy can be found in our FY24 Annual Report and Accounts.
- FY24 Performance Key
- On track
- Target met
- Monitor
- Below target/ target not met
People & Partners
Attracting and retaining diverse talent and investing in the success and development of our people and partners.
Targets
- Maintain an average of four training days per employee per year
Progress and Focus Areas
- We seek to address skills shortages and prepare for the future by developing our people through access to continuous learning and are signatory to the Social Mobility Pledge, committing us to providing opportunities to people from all different backgrounds.
- Over 500 line managers attended the Management Development Offer, equating to over 1500 training days
Targets
- Maintain 7% of workforce in a graduate, apprenticeship or trainee role
Progress and Focus Areas
- Engaged with over 10,000 secondary school and college students in-person, through classroom workshops, assemblies, and careers fairs.
- 344 colleagues have attended our Rising Stars programme, aimed at aspirational colleagues who want to prioritise learning and personal development.
- Our ASPIRE graduate development programme continues to attract candidates from all degree backgrounds, with 34 currently on the programme.
- We employed 353 apprentices, graduates and trainees in the year.
- We continue to develop delegates through our Armed Forces transition programme. Skills developed in the Armed Forces transfer well to site management, and the programme has brought a large number of high-calibre individuals into our business.
- In partnership with Sheffield Hallam University, we are the first housebuilder to deliver degree apprenticeships across the three main build functions (construction, quantity surveying, technical design and management) and real estate.
Targets
- Exceed 75th percentile score in the engagement survey
Progress and Focus Areas
Our engagement score year on year highlights:
- The provision of private medical insurance for all employees, an additional day’s holiday for all employees to celebrate a special day, and increased time for employee volunteering.
- The introduction of enhanced family friendly policies including extended maternity, paternity and carer leave.
- FY24 Performance Key
- On track
- Target met
- Monitor
- Below target/ target not met
Targets
- Gender and Ethnicity pay gap reporting
Progress and Focus Areas
- In December 2023, we published our annual Gender Pay Gap Report and, for the second year, our Ethnicity Pay Gap Report, as part of our commitment to transparency and to support our Diversity and Inclusion Strategy to improve the representation of all groups across the business.
- We continue to build on the work in place to support our teams through our recruitment processes, talent programmes, employee networks, succession planning and early careers development. We also remain committed to implementing proactive measures to address any pay disparities based on either gender or ethnicity.
Targets
- 35% of all employees to be female by the end of FY26 vs FY23
- Overall, 10% increase in ethnic minority employees by the end of FY26 vs FY23.
Progress and Focus Areas
- We are committed to ensuring that our workplaces are free from discrimination and that everyone is treated with dignity and respect.
- We are a signatory to the Business in the Community Race at Work Charter committing us to improving equality of opportunity in the workplace.
- ‘Leading Inclusively’ workshops delivered to all 300 top leaders across the Group as well as inclusive recruitment training delivered to 120 Hiring Managers to focus on ensuing dignity and respect for all.
- 38% increase in female and ethnic minority community (EMC) Trade Apprentice offers in FY24 compared to 15% in FY23.
- 15 key diversity events celebrated and 11 religious festivals, with contributions from our people all over the Group.
- For National Inclusion Week’s educational internal articles and social media posts totalling 3,200 views and resulting in a collective increase in membership to all our employee networks, with approximately 1 in 6 employees a member of a network.
- New network to support women on site and tools, with over 90 members in its first 6 months.
- Just under 150 employees currently on a support programme, either Catalyst for women or Spotlight for ethnic minority community colleagues.
- FY24 Performance Key
- On track
- Target met
- Monitor
- Below target/ target not met
Safety & Wellbeing
Keeping our employees and sub-contractors safe on site and empowering the health and wellbeing of all our people through great programmes and benefits.
Target
- Maintain Injury Incident Rate (IIR) at the level recorded in 2015 (381 or less per 100,000 employees including sub- contractors).
- Reduce sickness absence below the industry benchmark as defined by XpertHR (FY22 target of 6.1).
Progress and Focus Areas
- Our first priority is always to provide a safe working environment for all our employees and sub-contractors, and we are committed to achieving the highest industry health and safety standards.
- We remain focussed on improving our site-based processes and procedures, In FY24 our SHE audit compliance improved to 97%.
- We continue to build on our health and safety performance through site induction training, safety awareness for all personnel, challenging unsafe behaviours and developing our site managers’ vigilance to health and safety risks on site.
- We continue to prioritise health and wellbeing programmes.
- We launched a new Health & Wellbeing Hub on our intranet in early 2024.
- We have trained approximately 250 Mental Health First Aiders supporting employees across the business.
- Our menopause work was further recognised as a finalist in the Property Weekly awards.
- Working with the Lighthouse Construction Industry Charity we have delivered of a series of ‘Make it Visible Tours’ to 55 Barratt sites and engaged with 1,719 employees and sub-contractors.
- Suicide awareness training made available to all employees and promoted to our employees, subcontractors and allied trades.
- FY24 Performance Key
- On track
- Target met
- Monitor
- Below target/ target not met