People Matters

Our aim is to create engaging workplaces that promote open communication, shared vision and goals, flexibility, inclusivity and above all team SPIRIT! We want you to feel valued and engaged with your work, knowing that we are here to support you and provide you with the right tools to help you achieve your career aspirations with us.

Since December 2018 we have welcomed and promoted a number of colleagues into new positions which we know they will succeed in, so we would firstly like to congratulate and give a warm welcome to our new colleagues.

Learning and Development

We continue to aspire to be the employer of choice, offering opportunities for you to flourish. Across the last year we have continued to invest substantially in your development, looking at new learning opportunities and developing our apprenticeships offering.

My Learning Place has been developed significantly and many of you are using this to complete mandatory learning and optional learning to develop your knowledge and skills. Since its launch in 2017 we have issued over 36,000 badges, that’s at least 4 per person! We continue to encourage you to take a look at all of the resources that are available to you on My Learning Place and check back regularly as new resources are being released each month.

Being open to mental health can help to break down the stigma surrounding it, so as well as recently launching our new Mental Health Awareness eLearning Module on My Learning Place, we plan to train two people per contract to become Mental Health First Aiders. This role will be a point of contact for an employee who is experiencing a mental health issue or emotional distress, and they will receive the knowledge to be able to spot someone who is developing a mental health issue and be able to hopefully intervene sooner.

We are constantly looking for new and innovative ways for you to learn and develop; we recently ran our Safety seminars via a webinar on My Learning Place which received great feedback and saved costs and time of those ‘virtual’ attendees. It was such a success that we are planning on introducing more webinars in the future, so watch this space. We are also in the final stages of trialling our new ‘eInduction’ which is being adapted based on feedback from those trialling it. We are excited to roll this out in 2019.

Apprenticeships continue to be a key area of focus for the business and we have over 300 individuals in learning at any one time, making us one of the largest providers of apprenticeships in the leisure industry. If you are interested in studying for an apprenticeship, or want to recruit an apprentice into your team, please do speak to your manager or alternatively the People Team at peopleteam@pfpleisure.org.

If you have any queries regarding the learning and development opportunities available to you or have any suggestions, then please contact your line manager or alternatively the People Team at peopleteam@pfpleisure.org.

People Technology

Over the past 18 months, we have been working hard on digitalising our workforce processes and investing in People technology. Quinyx was officially rolled out to all leisure centres in December 2018. Our focus is now firmly set on developing the system to ensure we improve our processes through innovative approaches and ultimately enhance the manager and employee experience with new features. A happy workforce = a happy business!

‘A workplace like no other’ 

Places for People have developed a new careers site to inspire talented individuals to join our team. We make a positive difference to the lives of many people up and down the country. We have unlimited ambition and huge plans for the future. Take a look at a short film here which captures why we are a workplace like no other. If you would like further information about this, please contact your line manager.

Recognition

We are keen to ensure our colleagues are recognised when they do an outstanding job and when they show true SPIRIT. Please remember that you can nominate any of your colleagues, or a team, for a Star Award at any time of the year, but the deadline for this year is the 30^th June 2019. So please get your nominations in now.

Benefits

As a reminder, we have an Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) in place, which is free and completely confidential offering you support and advice 24/7. You can call FREE any time of the day or night on 0800 917 9330.

Our Place Rewards was launched in January 2019. If you haven’t looked at Our Place Rewards yet you are missing out! Simply visit rewards.placesforpeople.co.uk and register to get access.

People Survey

We are looking forward to carrying out a Staff Survey in October 2019 in partnership with ‘Great Place to Work’ in order to take a closer look at the ‘employee experience’ at Places Leisure. The survey will measure the level of trust and engagement across our people and will provide insights in to how our people feel about their workplace.

Feedback is important to us and we’d love to hear from you about things that we could improve on or are doing well.