A U.K. retailer has committed to hiring as many people with disabilities as possible to staff its new distribution center being built in Castle Donington, Leicestershire, while at the same time releasing internal market research about how its approach to inclusivity has improved its work environment.
Marks and Spencer (M&S) is a chain of stores in Great Britain akin to Target or Sam’s Club in the United States. According to this September 28 press release, M&S has recruited, trained, and employed 5,000 people with disabilities since 2004 through its Marks and Start program. The new 900,000-square-foot distribution facility in Leicestershire will create 1,000 jobs in the community, performing tasks such as light assembly, sorting, packing, and shipping.
M&S has partnered with Remploy to assist in its efforts to recruit individuals with disabilities to the workforce. The government-subsidized organization has a long history of providing contract manufacturing services to multiple industrial sectors. But as we touched on back in March, Remploy has closed many of its facilities and re-allocated budget dollars toward supported employment of these individuals in public-private partnerships like this very one.
If this all sounds vaguely familiar to you, it’s because you’ve been following our multitude of posts about the Walgreens drugstore chain, which has been working towards having 10% of its total workforce comprised of people with disabilities and organizing summits with other business leaders to share ideas about how to advance career training and recruitment for these individuals. M&S’s director of IT and logistics Darrell Stein may have been referring to one of these when he told This is Leicestershire that Walgreens was his inspiration:
After I came back from America, I told the team ‘I’ve got a challenge I want us to take on…’ I wanted to introduce something like that — and the aim for Castle Donington is to employ as many people as we can with disabilities to contribute to the 1,000 people we will have on site.
Part of the two-week training program M&S provides to employees with disabilities is its “buddy” mentoring program. A well-timed article about this initiative appears in Great Britain’s HR Magazine, in which M&S Human Resource director, Tanith Dodge, shared details about the program with writer Tom Newcombe. She also points out that being a buddy had a positive impact on the employees who participated:
In a recent survey we did, 99% of people who were a buddy felt more motivated when they came to work because they were working alongside someone and coaching them. Over 50% felt they had developed existing skills and 84% thought they had learnt fresh skills including mentoring, leading and coaching… Because of this scheme, 98% said it made M&S a better place to work.
As we observe National Disability Employment Awareness Month here in the U.S., the efforts of Britain’s Marks and Spencer stores are worthy of sharing as a way to make life matter more for individuals with disabilities.
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Image by UggBoy.