Highly Commended, Hugely Committed: The Engagement Journey Behind D&G’s National Recognition

Following the 2024 Engage Awards, we’ve had the privilege of sitting down with our finalists to uncover the stories behind their strategies. 

Today we sat down with Domestic & General, who achieved our 'Highly Commended' recognition for the ‘Great Place to Work’ award.

1. Congratulations on being a finalist at the 2024 Engage Awards! Can you tell us a little bit more about the project that shaped your entry?

We were finalists , and we were awarded, Highly Commended,  against many other large organisations ,  and a record-breaking number of  entries across the UK. 

So we’re super proud of this result ! 

We’re a team of seven hundred colleagues within the UK – we formulate our entire strategy for colleague engagement together , incorporating the feedback and views of our colleagues and with this , our senior leadership team devise an overall plan to ensure we’re engaging and supporting our diverse demographic... 

We have an additional layer of planning at team level, our team leaders are constantly evolving colleague engagement plans to meet the developing ideas and needs of our colleagues. Nothing is off limits when it comes to colleague ideas, if we can trial it we will – if it works we do more of it, if it doesn’t we share this feedback to ensure understanding and move on to the next idea. Our entry was born from the range of initiatives we have landed over the last 12 months and the uplift of our scores in specific focus areas across the team.

2. What motivated you to pursue this initiative, and why do you think it stood out?

Having worked in contact centres for many years, I’ve seen varied attempts to create a great working environment – My team and I understand , that to deliver exceptional customer outcomes we must have an engaged workforce and to compete in the contact centre space for colleague attraction & retention we need to remain innovative, listen to our people and utilise the incredible ideas and suggestions from our front line to shape our culture / ways of working. 

I , alongside many members of the UK leadership team , began our careers as contact centre agents and we understand the complexity of the role, alongside the resilience required to handle back to back calls , with a range of KPI’s and customer needs live in the moment – it’s a balancing act  – The agent role is the one I admire most within the industry and colleagues in these roles need leaders who listen, support and continually evolve the working environment to enable them to be their best.

We stood out based on the incredible engagement uplifts observed within the UK Inbound team , we have seen engagement grow 30% since 2022, in this time our team has grown too, and we have continuously lifted our scoring based on individual focus areas each time we have surveyed. We’re not done yet but the turnaround and growth has been expediential.

We have constantly evolved our strategy and incorporated new ideas from our teams,  inclusive of a family agenda which has become a blueprint for UK wide engagement across multiple business areas now.  

We have launched a charitable focus which is accessible for all colleagues regardless of location – working closely with On Hand , The Impact App , we have opened a colleague fitness facility – an idea from our agent team , and with support from many teams across the business we have landed in excess of 100 new engagement initiatives over the last 12-24 months. 

3. What were the biggest challenges you faced during this journey, and how were they overcome?

Within D&G we have an everyday flexibility policy meaning we recruit on  a remote or hybrid basis and colleagues can then choose to work from where they are most productive , this is amazing for colleague work life balance, productivity and flexibility. This was a brand new post pandemic way of working and to ensure we operate exceptionally well within this model, it has required our teams to pivot , to ensure our time spent together is meaningful & valuable on each occasion.

We’ve launched social, away day, team & family agendas to enable this and our communication strategy continually evolves inclusive of a new platform for colleague communication and an extensive engagement strategy with an equal focus on hybrid & remote initiatives ensuring everyone is included.

Colleagues have shared feedback around how this works best for them and we are continually optimising our activity in this space – we really enjoy getting a look into the new hobbies, charitable activity & family benefits colleagues have now got time for when they aren’t commuting on work from home days – its great to see the balance working well for so many colleagues across the UK.

4. How has this initiative impacted your organisation, customers, and employees?

When we began in 2022 we saw an immediate reduction in colleague attrition and absence , we also saw improved Quality Assurance from our colleagues and all areas across the UK lifted engagement wise.

We have launched new roles inclusive of lead agents in every team which has increased support for our front line colleagues and provided a career pathway specifically for contact centre colleagues , we’ve seen average tenure increases across the team , charity participation which launched in 2023 tripled from 2023 to 2024. We also see at least 50% of roles filled internally and because we’re able to hire right across the UK we’ve seen more diversity within our team.

We won UKCCF & ECCCSA awards for our culture and engagement strategy  , our site attendance increased throughout 2024 and remains consistent , meaning colleagues are choosing to use the office. Colleagues are more engaged than they were and choosing to work with us longer which is a huge benefit to performance and customer experience. 

5. What advice would you give to other companies striving for similar success?

Almost all of our ideas come from our colleagues, we don’t create the plan for engagement or team activity – colleagues  do,  and this ensures success. A diverse, approachable, and present leadership team enables new ideas and constant 360 feedback. We’re continually optimising , exploring best practice externally and trialling new ideas – we’re really open to sharing best practice and ideas too if leaders in the UK would like to visit us or share successes we’re all ears.

To view all of the our 2024 winners, visit our website.

To find out more about the Engage Awards programme, click here.