We are proud of our positive and collaborative culture throughout the organisation. It is underpinned by our values of humility, integrity, adaptability, and industriousness, which is demonstrated by our people every day. This is at the heart of our purpose of empowering businesses and unlocking the potential of our people, properties, and communities.

Employee engagement

Regular and consistent engagement with employees and wider stakeholders nurtures our culture and helps employees thrive. We do this through platforms such as our annual employee and tenant surveys, workshops, and other events.

This year, we created a new position of Group Director of Employee Engagement. The role will focus on initiatives designed to boost employee engagement, satisfaction, and motivation and positively impact our Employee Net Promotor Score (ENPS), which is our main data point for measuring employee satisfaction.

80.9% of the total employee survey group said they would recommend the company to others as a great place to work.

Going forward, we intend to make qualitative and quantitative improvements in employee engagement, which should see our employee engagement score be maintained at its current level.

People@Work

We also launched a group-wide employee engagement initiative called People@Work, focused on partnering with employees to address areas needing further attention as identified in the 2023 employee survey.

We identified key focus areas and created twelve working groups, six in the UK and six in Germany, to tackle issues relating to working conditions, diversity and inclusion, wellbeing, learning and development, leadership, and communication.

Each group of volunteers has Board sponsors and is supported by a People & Talent Team member to act as a facilitator. This helps to ensure the groups do not work in silos, duplicate activities, and remain aligned with our commercial strategy.

Each group was tasked with identifying up to three key actions within their specific area that, if addressed, could positively impact employees, tenants, shareholders, and the wider community. Almost half of the projects identified were immediately actionable. The rest were submitted for further consideration and approval.

Workplace

In 2023, we launched a new group-wide communications platform called Workplace.

It provides staff with the ease and immediacy of social media, making it easier for people to engage with each other, learn more about the business and our strategy, as well as strengthening internal communication and connection across the Group.

The tool has been well received, with an adoption rate of more than 90%. We also appointed and trained Workplace Ambassadors who can promote the platform's functionality to colleagues.

They will help to develop and deliver content as part of a new strategic editorial plan.