Culture and engagement

Employee engagement

We have established several formal channels for dialogue with colleagues and also conduct regular feedback surveys.  Our latest employee survey was completed by 54% of colleagues and showed an engagement score of 93% (2021: 91%).

Higher scoring areas included health and safety, diversity and inclusion, engagement and sustainability. The survey also showed that colleagues think we can do more in relation to reward, workload and internal communication. The results of the survey were reviewed by the Board, our GMT, heads of function and regional leadership teams.

Code of Conduct: Our employee Code of Conduct sets out the high standards of integrity and conduct we expect. It summarises the key policies and procedures that everyone should be familiar with and has been distributed to all employees.

Induction process: Our induction process ‘Laying the Foundations’, includes pre-start material to engage new employees and help them quickly become familiar with how we work. It includes content on our commitment to customers and how we operate as a listed company, as well as topics such as diversity and inclusion, modern slavery, and privacy and data security.

Recognition: We were ranked 7th among UK companies and 28th overall in the European Women on Boards' Gender Diversity Index and are in the top 10 best performers in the FTSE Women Leaders Review for gender diversity on Boards in FTSE 350 firms. We ranked 238 out of 15,000 companies in the Financial Times most inclusive companies in Europe survey.

We have a gold award from the Defence Employer Recognition Scheme and promote jobs with Taylor Wimpey to veterans via the Careers Transition Partnership Platform.

Employee forums

We have a National Employee Forum (NEF) to enhance communication between employees and our leadership and ensure that employee views on matters affecting the business are heard and represented. The National Employee Forum (NEF) members represent all parts of the business and the Forum is chaired by a regional Managing Director. The NEF met four times in 2022 and discussed a range of issues including skills planning, staff bonuses, The New Homes Quality Code and Ombudsman, wellbeing and cyber security. 

Each business unit as well as our strategic land division, head office and logistics business has its own Local Employee Forum (LEF). These include elected employees, with each key function represented, as well as members of the local leadership. LEFs meet at least twice a year and feedback from the sessions is reviewed by regional and Group management, and informs the agenda for our NEF meetings where appropriate.

Our Board has appointed an Employee Champion to strengthen engagement with employees and champion the ‘employee voice’ in the boardroom. In 2022, this was Robert Noel, our Senior Independent Director. As well as attending NEF meetings, the Employee Champion met with small groups of junior to mid-level employees to gather feedback in an informal setting and without senior management being present, to further encourage openness.

Labour relations

The Construction Industry Joint Council (CIJC) Working Rule Agreement is an industry-wide collective agreement between employer and trade union representatives. It governs the pay rates of operatives on our sites as well as factors such as fare and travel allowances, holidays and sick pay. Pay rates are above the voluntary living wage. Around 35% of direct employees are also covered by the agreement.

Raising concerns

We encourage employees to share any concerns, breaches of our policies or suspected cases of unethical conduct with their direct line manager, another manager or by reporting to our Group General Counsel and Company Secretary, Group HR Director or Head of Internal Audit. This includes any form of harassment or bullying, or if any employee has reason to believe that modern slavery of any form may exist within our organisation or our supply chain, or may occur in the future. We also operate an independent confidential reporting hotline, Safecall, available to all employees and subcontractors. We are reminding employees about these arrangements through our Respectful Workplace Training.

Workforce turnover

During 2022, we directly employed, on average, 5,140 people across the UK (2021: 5,271) and provided opportunities for, on average, a further 11,1000 operatives on our sites (2021: 11,100).

Our voluntary employee turnover was 17.7% (2021: 19.0%). We aim to keep this below 15%.

We restructured parts of our business in early 2023 to improve efficiency, reduce costs and respond to challenges in the housing market and the wider economy. We provided training and guidance to managers to help them support colleagues during this time.  We treated anyone affected by redundancy fairly and respectfully, including offering outplacement support, and where possible redeployed affected employees into alternative roles in our business.