We are building a business we are proud of, where all our colleagues can feel at home and are empowered to support their communities and customers.
Inclusion and diversity
At Wickes, we are building a space where anyone – no matter who they are or where they’re from – can feel at home. We are working towards a gender balanced team across all roles and functions at Wickes, and a business that reflects the communities we serve through ethnic diversity and leadership ethnicity balance.
Our Inclusion and Diversity policy sets out how we are creating an inclusive culture and diverse workforce through our colleagues’ journeys with Wickes. Our inclusion and diversity programme is spearheaded by our six colleague-led ‘Feel at Home’ networks that drive awareness and education of our diverse communities. Each of the six networks has an Executive Board sponsor, who helps the network flourish and raise awareness across the business.
We work with partners such as Stonewall and Valuable 500 to encourage change, share knowledge and achieve ambitious standards. We are a founding member of Diversity in Retail and we’re a signatory to Business in the Community’s Race at Work Charter and the British Retail Consortium’s Diversity and Inclusion charter, committing to share our learnings and data to support the wider retail community.
We’re proud to have our work on inclusion and diversity recognised externally. In 2023 Wickes was shortlisted for Company of the Year at the Burberry British Diversity Awards, and we ranked 11th in the top 100 Stonewall Workplace Equality Index 2023. We publish a report each year about our gender and ethnicity pay gap. We also talk about our overall performance in our annual Responsible Business Reports.
Building skills and creating opportunities
Building skills in our local communities through our Early Careers offering is essential to ensure we continue to attract and develop the skills required for future growth at Wickes.
We are working to offer and support 200 Early Career places each year from 2022 to 2024. This can be through apprenticeship programmes, traineeship and school programmes, or graduate, intern and business placements. Since its launch in 2019, Wickes’ 17 apprenticeship programmes have seen over 900 people either complete or currently engaged in an apprenticeship. You can find out more about these opportunities on the Early Careers page of our Careers website.
One of our key focuses is developing a skilled workforce and securing a sustainable installer workforce for the future. Our Installer Apprenticeship Programme is an integral part of this and saw us awarded an Outstanding Achievement by the British Institute of Kitchen, Bedroom & Bathroom Installation for our longstanding work on apprenticeships within the kitchen, bedroom and bathroom sector. We also featured on RateMyApprenticeship’s Best 100 Apprenticeship Employers for 2023-2024.
We talk about our overall performance in our annual Responsible Business Reports.
Our local communities and charitable giving
We empower and support our colleagues to give back to their communities. The Wickes Community Programme allows and encourages our colleagues to support good causes in their local communities by donating Wickes products, and we aim to support 1,500 projects each year. Stores have access to a dedicated product fund of £300,000 per year to support local initiatives to maintain and renovate community areas.
Open to local community groups and charities seeking help for improvement projects, you can enquire via your local store or contact us on social media.
We’re proud to be supporting Campaign Against Living Miserably (CALM) to help provide the tools for life.
CALM is a suicide prevention charity fighting to reduce the devastating impact of suicide in the UK. Their vision is that no one feels like suicide is their only option.
We’re throwing everything (but the kitchen sink! OK, maybe the kitchen sink as well) into raising over £2million during our partnership by engaging our colleagues, customers and suppliers in fundraising activities.
‘We are delighted to have been chosen as Wickes’ charity partner, supporting our mission to help people end their misery, not their lives. We’re here every day of the year to make sure more people get to see their tomorrow. Thank you for your support - it really does make a difference - and your fundraising is quite literally life-saving’ Simon Gunning, CEO, CALM
Anyone can feel suicidal. 1 in 5 of us will experience suicidal thoughts in our lifetime. And someone in the UK dies by suicide every 90 minutes. CALM exists to change this. That’s why we’re uniting against suicide, and partnering with CALM to make a difference to people’s lives. We’ve always provided our communities with the right tools for the job - and now, with CALM, we can provide the tools for their lives.
Campaign Against Living Miserably and Wickes are coming together to raise life-saving funds and to raise vital awareness of the devastating impact of suicide and, crucially, how we can prevent it.
Did you know?
Suicide is now the leading cause of death for young people and men under the age of 50 in the UK.
Construction workers are 4 times more likely to die by suicide than in any other sector.
But there is hope. Suicide is the most preventable cause of death in the UK. By reducing the stigma and shame surrounding suicide, we can save more lives.
Stopping suicide starts with all of us. Join us - and together we can save more lives.
Learn more: www.thecalmzone.net
CALM is here to help people end their misery, not their lives. And alongside their life-saving services, including a suicide prevention helpline (with support available via the phone, via webchat and through whatsapp), they also run vital campaigns to increase awareness, smash stereotypes, and change the culture around mental health and suicide. Like this one.