Why It Matters
Our ability to serve customers and communities, to advance business strategy and to deliver strong returns for investors all starts with the energy and focus of our teammates. In an increasingly competitive labour market, we are investing in people so they are engaged, grow in their careers and can continue to be the high performers that we count on.
Analyst Spotlight Our Approach
Being people-powered is one of our core values—and a critical enabler of our ability to deliver on our business strategy. Our multi-year People Plan is designed to support organic growth by investing in:
including our commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I)
We continued to make progress and refine our approach to employee development and experience in fiscal 2023 in response to external trends and challenges.
Our approach in this area continues to align with our comprehensive commitments to DE&I, ensuring we are drawing on key experience and data to create a more equitable employee experience for all teammates, regardless of gender, ethnicity or cultural background.
Hearing from Our Teammates
In fiscal 2023 we conducted our inaugural company-wide survey, hearing from corporate and franchise teammates in the same survey for the first time. Close to 70,000 teammates across the country shared their feedback, which is an overall participation of 75 per cent (91 per cent in corporate stores and locations; 56 per cent in franchises). We also expanded our approach to include store satisfaction surveys and lifecycle surveys, allowing us to hear
In fiscal 2023 we conducted our inaugural company-wide survey, hearing from corporate and franchise teammates in the same survey for the first time. Close to 70,000 teammates across the country shared their feedback, which is an overall participation of 75 per cent (91 per cent in corporate stores and locations; 56 per cent in franchises). We also expanded our approach to include store satisfaction surveys and lifecycle surveys, allowing us to hear from teammates at key milestones including hiring, onboarding, and when they were leaving our company. Survey results continued to inform our planning, goal-setting and KPIs.
from teammates at key milestones including hiring, onboarding, and when they were leaving our company. Survey results continued to inform our planning, goal-setting and KPIs.
Learning from these trends and insights, our approach is focused on creating internal pathways for promotion and growth and ensuring we have a diverse talent pipeline. In addition, we continue to focus on developing aligned and consistent capabilities internally—all backed by strategic hiring. We are helping our teams become even more results-driven by setting clear goals and reinforcing performance expectations—including setting personal development goals at all levels with a strong link to incentives.
We have been focused on providing and implementing:
Regular formal performance reviews aligned with career development for all permanent employees
Initiatives for talent recruitment, development and retention—including developing strategies to adapt to meet employee needs, providing greater assurance and predictability on shifts and wages, and offering more pathways from part-time to full-time and longer-term employment
Formal mechanisms to promote an open feedback culture, including employee experience surveys and new onboarding and exit surveys
Improvements to our operational data to enable target-setting and build a stronger foundation for reporting, analysis and insights
Quantitative measures and reporting on human capital development and risk assessment
Highlights
Nationwide Capabilities Building
In fiscal 2023 we continued to focus on developing a consistent, repeatable approach to building national programs based on a rigorous assessment of capability needs and gaps. We launched a new merchandising learning and development program that includes a combination of structured onboarding, job shadowing, on-the-job training and continuing education. More than 480 teammates are undertaking certification with Elevate U, our merchandising training platform. Over 1750 managers took part in capability programs in fiscal 2023. Additional programs launched in fiscal 2023 included a Meat Cutting Learning Program for in-store teammates and a Store Management Essentials Series to kickstart journeys into management positions.
Investing in Teammate Growth and Development
To support career development, in fiscal 2023 we launched a foundational resource called My Journey, which provides support and resources for teammates to grow in our operations teams, we offer a number of additional industry leading programs to support teammate growth and build rewarding careers. This includes development programs in supply chain, meat cutting, cake decorating, culinary skills, naturopathy, franchise in training, department manager in training and store manager in training. Additional programs to support teammate growth include education assistance and scholarship programs.
Advancing Career Models
We recently introduced new Career Models for teammates to understand expectations and opportunities associated with different roles and performance levels. This is a key tool to both identify and develop our people and future leaders through clear learning and career pathways. In our operations teams, we currently have our largest-ever cohort undertaking certification through our Nourish U training platform, and we continue to offer a range of industry-specific learning programs in all our regions and banners.
Empowering Our People
Teammate growth and development is reinforced through our goal setting, performance and talent review processes, and progress is measured through our annual employee experience survey.
Leadership Pipeline
Through a robust talent and succession strategy, we continue to build our leadership pipeline by nurturing the development of future leaders for critical roles at every level of the organization. By taking a systematic and supportive approach, we ensure that as promotion opportunities arise, we have several candidates with the skills and relevant experiences to advance.
Champions
By creating transparent career paths, we support teammates to identify new opportunities for development and salary progression without having to leave the company. Our learning programs support technical, functional and leadership development, and we use the performance and success processes to help teammates grow in their roles. It is exciting to see the work we do on internal talent development play out at every level of the company—from new category managers to store leaders to our VPs.”
Kyla Boehk, Talent Development Specialist, Sobeys
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Taking care of our teammates includes prioritizing their health, safety and wellbeing and empowering them through our commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion.
As a family nurturing families, we want to ensure Canadians are taken care of today, tomorrow and in the future. By doing OurPart™ for the environment, we hope to inspire our customers to do theirs. Every step we take together—big or small—can make a difference.
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