Our focus is to inspire the next generation of talent by supporting science, engineering, technology and maths (`STEM´) education, alongside our commitment to employees and to the communities where we operate, both in the UK and globally. We continue to make good progress in this area, whilst remaining practical in some of our longer-term objectives.
Diversity in the workplace and community volunteering remain key priorities for Victrex, with a target to deliver 10,000 hours of volunteering by employees in our local communities over the medium term.
To find out more, see our Sustainability Report.
Employees (as at year end)
-
In 1993
60
-
In 2022
1093
Average number of people employed during the year
Our employees
The breadth and depth of talent across our workforce at all locations continues to be important to Victrex, particularly as we move further downstream towards selected semi-finished products, ensuring we have the capabilities both at a manufacturing level, and across our business. In an increasingly competitive global market, ensuring that we attract, engage, develop and retain our people remains a consistent theme for Victrex. Each year we run an organisational capability review following our annual strategic review. This supports us to identify and develop the capabilities and experience we need to deliver our business strategy. This is led by the Chief Executive Officer, supported by the Group Human Resources Director and the Executive Directors of each business unit.
Inclusion and Diversity
As an inclusive employer we continue to be fully supportive in our engagement of current and prospective employees regardless of gender, age, disability, ethnicity, etc. We have continued to ensure all our recruitment and selection processes support an inclusive approach at every stage of the process. This has included working with external recruitment agencies on supplying us with diverse shortlists as a critical part of our agreement with them.
For more information on Inclusion and Diversity please see our Sustainability Report.
Development
Employee development is always a focus and this year saw us embracing digital learning in a more active way by introducing a much more comprehensive e-learning and digital learning solution. This has been very well received and shows our employees increasing their volume of digital learning by a total of 705 hours specific to the new digital learning. Seminar based development has been limited for many employees this year due to homeworking and COVID-19. In our Operations area, it has continued to be of importance with 96% taking part in learning. Our ongoing focus on safety has seen 140 managers attend SHE Safety masterclasses and then workshops rolled out to all employees. 98% of employees have attended SHE sessions to date.
In FY 2021 we had 49 (40M:9F) employees on apprenticeship programmes including 5 (3M:2F) employees completing their qualifications. Employees across Victrex have completed 16,247 hours of learning in FY 2021.
Wellbeing
Our priorities for the health and wellbeing of employees are unwavering. Occupational health and private medical services are available for all employees in all locations. Our focus on wellbeing services includes on-site medical checks, provision of financial education sessions and driver safety for company car owners and frequent travellers. This year we have introduced a new behavioural approach to driver safety and training for traveller safety.
Recognition
Our well established recognition programme ranges from instant and functional awards through to our annual CEO Awards, which have become the showcase of the year, with an increased number of categories to reflect the global talent across our business.
Involvement
We continue to offer a range of communication channels, both formal and informal, allowing us to ensure that our employees remain informed of business updates and two-way discussions take place:
- Running our quarterly staff briefings virtually again this year due to COVID-19 restrictions, which allow our employees to ‘stay in touch’ with our leadership team and hear about business updates. Our leadership team has also been running specific employee sessions which have covered topics including ‘how we can make our meetings more effective’ and ‘improving speed and agility’.
- Brendan Connolly, our workforce engagement non-executive Director, has been virtually meeting with our employees globally to listen to employee voice, explore views and drive employee engagement.
- Following our 2020 Employee Engagement Survey we have been focused on driving improvements in the last twelve months. 64% of our employees feel that we have listened to their views in relation to improvements and 66% of employees believe that we will take action on making improvements. We established a specific group – Victrex Engagement Steering Team (‘VEST’) to drive progress and action.
Next year will see a continuation of our engagement activity including the latest bi-annual Employee Engagement Survey, to continue to ensure employee voice is embedded within our culture, built on innovation and delivering with speed and service.
Community volunteering
Supporting local communities and participating in regional and national events which inspire the next generation of employees is a big focus for Victrex. Our main focus is to get young people interested and excited about science, technology and engineering. This year our employees participated in activities in local schools and colleges, spending over 300 hours supporting the next generation. Since we started formally measuring our activities, we have committed over 10,500 hours to the community since 2013.
We continue to partner with Catalyst Discovery Centre in the UK – which teaches school-age children about chemistry and how polymers are made, in an interactive way – and are actively involved in the Science Industry Partnership (‘SIP’).
Victrex has also participated in a range of activities within local communities, offering apprenticeships, promoting awareness in schools and advancement of research work at universities and providing work experience to students of all ages at varying stages of their academic careers.
As a business we continue to
- provide a clean, safe working environment which meets all legislative requirements and all the necessary training and support for employees to operate safely within it;
- provide appropriate remuneration for work carried out and equal opportunities for development and career advancement;
- be intolerant of any unacceptable working practices such as any form of discrimination, bullying or harassment;
- prohibit illegal activities on our sites; and
- promote fair, ethical and transparent business practices both within our business and in dealings with external stakeholders.
