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.
The Brain Tumour Charity, the UK’s largest dedicated brain tumour charity, is our corporate charity partner. It was chosen through a rigorous three-month process involving colleague nominations and voting. Starting in April 2023 and continuing until April 2025, our mission is to raise £2 million to support The Brain Tumour Charity’s vital work in fighting brain tumours on all fronts.
We are raising money through colleague fundraising, plastic bag sales, customer donations and donations from our suppliers. All 230 of our stores take part in regular ‘50p-ask’ customer fundraising events supported by bake sales and other in store activities.
Our partnership with YoungMinds came to a close in March 2023. This was hugely successful and we raised over £2.3 million over the three-year partnership. This was from in-store activities, online donations and colleague challenges.
We talk about our overall performance in our annual Responsible Business Reports.