Inside the workforce of CitNOW

As the HR & Academy Director for CitNOW, creating an environment where our people want to stay is an integral part of our people strategy.

#pulse

I’m proud that our retention efforts are reflected in our voluntary labour turnover, which is considerably below external private-sector benchmarks.

Whilst functional requirements or skillsets are in many cases needed to fulfil a role effectively, it is equally important to us that we hire candidates who are aligned with our culture and one team values. Known internally as our ‘DNA’, our virtual three-day induction programme provides new starters with a blend of CitNOW business knowledge, a meet and greet with team members and practical product insights. Our induction experience will soon be accompanied by a ‘Welcome to CitNOW’ e-learning module too, as we continue to evolve and develop our onboarding journey for new starters.

Providing our people with opportunities to develop and progress is a key part of our 2021 people strategy as we work towards an internal training plan that positively influences engagement, retention and performance. We aim to promote from within and all roles are advertised internally only for the first two weeks of the recruitment process, with a dedicated internal communication channel for our vacancy promotions.

We aim to source all external talent directly, recruiting candidates through platforms such as LinkedIn, social media channels and job boards. In our most recent engagement survey, 84% of our employees said they would recommend CitNOW as a great place to work. We therefore encourage them to do just that with a generous referral scheme that incentivises employees to share our vacancies with their wider professional networks.

Four smart casually dressed people looking at laptops

The wellbeing of our people has never been more important and every year we hold ‘Wellness Week’ where we focus solely on all aspects of employee wellbeing. In 2020 we also launched ‘Wellness Days’; a new benefit which enables all employees to take two half-days’ paid leave per year that they can use to focus on their personal wellbeing with over 540 hours having been booked for this purpose already! This works alongside our winter wellbeing hours initiative that enables our teams to benefit from some outdoor exercise during the working day. We supplement our wellbeing initiatives with webinars run by experts who focus on topics such as ‘Mental Wealth’, ‘Wellbeing for Working Parents’ ‘Switching Off’ and ‘Nutrition’. The development of our managers is also closely linked with our wellbeing strategy, with all line managers participating in Mental Health Awareness training to ensure that they continue to be equipped to support their teams effectively.

Engagement and participation by employees with our annual global engagement survey remains high. In addition, we provide our teams with an anonymous platform to ask our leadership team questions and/or make suggestions as to how we can make CitNOW a better place to work. Running in parallel to this is our ‘One Team forum’ with representatives from across the business who meet regularly to focus on engagement and varying people initiatives. Finally, our global ‘Employee of the Month’ programme enables peer-to-peer and wider company recognition.

Team activity outdoors on green grass field on sunny day with people using hula hoops around their waists

Attracting, engaging and developing our greatest asset ­– our employees – remains our top priority. Our focus and projects for the year ahead remain closely aligned to this overarching strategy.

As a continually growing team, we post our latest vacancies on our careers page here.