Our people

We are the sum of our people and our achievements are down to their collective talent, ingenuity and endeavour. To continue this success, we must make sure that our business and our people are prepared and eager to deliver the change we need.

Agile working

The pandemic resulted in a change in the way we all work, accelerating our approach towards agile working in our offices and on our sites.

We supported our people working remotely through a range of activities, including improvements to IT functionality, financial support for homeworking as well as training to support safety and wellbeing.

Gender balance and ethnic diversity

Our aspiration is to achieve a 50/50 gender balance by 2030. As a result of Covid-19, we rebased to an interim target of 30% to the end of 2021. By end-2021, we increased the percentage of women in the business to 29.1%. 46% of our hires in 2021 were women. And, at the end of 2021, 48.5% of our management trainees were women. Click here to find out more about our approach to diversity.

% women and different ethnic groups

In 2021 six women secured permanent roles in our business having taken part in our Welcome Back returners programme. This is a 20-week programme that offers work experience along with a coaching programme to support those who have had a career break.

To provide a springboard for a new generation of women leaders, 2021 saw the first cohort graduate from our Women’s Leadership Development Programme pilot. The programme, supported by CITB funding, provides high-potential female leaders from our business and from supply chain partners with mentoring, learning delivered by Cambridge University’s Judge Business School and the chance to shadow senior management. The pilot’s success has ensured that the programme will run annually from now on.

In 2021, we launched our Menopause cafés, a monthly informal support group to help educate all of our people on the menopause. It provides our people with the opportunity to get information and advice and talk to other people going through the same experiences.

As a result of our efforts to promote a gender balance, in 2021, for the third year running, we appeared in The Times' Top 50 Employers for Women list.

Inclusion

We know we need to attract a more diverse workforce to build teams that reflect the communities we serve and to make us a better business.  In 2021 we became members of Black Professionals in Construction. Two of our regional offices are also members of Building Equality - LGBT+ Construction Group.

We are also an approved Disability Confident employer and continue to be a member of the Business Disability Forum. We have been signatories of the Care Leavers Covenant since 2019. We are also signatories of the Armed Forces Covenant, and hold their silver award supporting the Defence Employer Recognition Scheme.

Attracting the next generation

2021 saw us continue our work to increase apprenticeships in the business.

Management trainees and apprentices employed

As members of the 5% Club we pledge that at least 5% of our workforce will be in formalised apprenticeships, sponsored students or on graduate development schemes. At the end of 2021, 5.7% of our people fulfilled those criteria.

Hear from some of our apprentices working on our Gascoigne East project:

Investing in our people

Our shift to agile working led us to moving our learning resources online. We secured funding from CITB to support the transition of our leadership learning resources to the virtual world. In 2021, around 70% of our learning resources could be accessed online.

This year, we launched The Willmott Dixon School of Coaching. Our School of Coaching harnesses the talent of our people, who have volunteered to coach and lead people within the business. The School also gives our people the opportunity to train to become a coach themselves.

Total amount spent on learning and development

In 2020, our Construction business was awarded Investors in People (IIP) – Platinum, the highest accolade possible for the top benchmark for people investment and development. This follows on from Gold for Willmott Dixon Interiors. We will be reassessed at the end of 2022/early 2023.