newsletter
Curated for you
Edition n˚
Founder's note Dear Cult Beauty, I hope you are all managing to enjoy the eventual arrival of summer and are managing to avoid the NHS app ‘pingdemic’ as we all venture out into our collective new normal.
TO TEAM DC – Thank you! The arrival of the hot weather, while long-awaited for many, means that our fantastic team at the DC need to employ some imaginative solutions to comfortably navigate the rising temperatures. I can't thank you all enough for your persistence and dedication to keeping the ‘Cult Beauty thrills’ coming to our customers. You are at the very heart of our business, and quite simply – Cult Beauty wouldn’t be what it is without the pride you take in your work.
Campaigns Committee For those of you who attended the town hall, you will have heard me announce the launch of our new and evolving Campaigns Committee. This has been created based on feedback from the employee survey and in collaboration with our CULTure Collective to help our marketing and content teams to raise their heads outside of their own experiences, to enrich our collective output and be as inclusive as possible.
What is it? It's an internal platform for diverse voices to be heard throughout our campaign generation process. As with everything we do, this feedback will be considered within the framework of budget, time and brand commitments in which our business operates. For example, most campaign budgets only allow one to three models, which gives us fewer opportunities to represent everyone, however, we will continue to assess diversity across campaigns to ensure our content is relatable for everyone.
It has six core objectives to help us be: •
Diverse & Inclusive
• Non-performative • Accessible • Data-Driven • Intentional •
Inside out approach
You can see the town hall slides here and read all about the committee in greater detail here.
Peakon Survey 2.0 It’s been six months since the launch of our initial Peakon Engagement survey. Hard to believe I know! The HR team will be sending out the next survey on Monday 26th July, and it will be open for an extended period of three weeks to give everyone a chance to complete it while many of us take a well-deserved summer break. It is vital that we have your open and honest feedback to make things better for you, especially now we don’t see each other in person every day, it’s harder to gauge what is and isn’t working as managers. I know things have been challenging, and the context in which we are currently operating has not been as fun or as innovative and forward-looking as we all want Cult Beauty to be - but this will be over soon. I hope you feel that you’ve seen some improvements based on your feedback in the last survey. Check the HR update in this newsletter for a re-cap on what we have achieved to-date.
Lex
Winning Initiatives Thank you to everyone who took the time to vote in our initiatives survey – all feedback is extremely helpful and well received. We are working on action plans for the top three initiatives: •
Lunch and Learns
•
Budget for events
•
Anonymous Praise Board
Watch this space for updates!
Peakon Survey 2.0 As most of you will be aware, the end of January saw the launch of our first ever Employee Engagement Survey in partnership with Peakon. This was an important first step in giving our people a safe space to feed back about what it’s like working at Cult Beauty. Our objective in doing this was to understand where we are doing well and where you felt there was room for improvement, as well as setting our first benchmarks to track the ongoing journey of internal growth as a company.
Since January we have worked hard to deliver on the improvements you wanted to see. Through a variety of initiatives, we have taken strides to deliver on those improvements. Whilst we know there is still much to do, we hope the things that have been put in place are demonstrating that we take employee engagement incredibly seriously and will always strive to make Cult Beauty a great place to work, reflective of our community and a place where all voices are heard and included. As a reminder, since February we have launched the following as a result of your valuable feedback.
Diversity and Inclusion •
The People, Leadership and Culture Steering Co, comprising of our Senior Leadership team was introduced to discuss initiatives to continue to shape, drive and further our people agenda.
•
We published our first ever Internal Recruitment Policy, committing to delivering the highest of standards when driving the D+I agenda through our recruitment.
•
A series of training sessions and ‘lunch & learns’ have been launched, including topics such as Unconscious Bias and Imposter Syndrome, as well as learning from first-hand experiences with a session to support Pride.
•
This week, we launched the Campaigns Committee to ensure that our campaigns, wider marketing and communications embrace diversity by proactively including people from different backgrounds in their creation process.
Health and Wellbeing •
An annual Wellbeing day has been introduced on top of your annual leave allocation as an opportunity to take a pre-booked day off to dedicate time to some self-care and R+R.
•
Meeting free times on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays were introduced by our wonderful CULTure Collective.
•
Our team of professionally trained Mental Health First Aiders received 10 hours of training through Mental Health England and are now on hand to sign post you to the appropriate support if you feel you are struggling and need some help.
•
A ‘Workload check- in’ has been added as a staple in our regular 1:1 catch ups in order to help managers understand if team and/or individual workloads are manageable.
•
And, last but absolutely not least, the CULTure Collective was launched! Since launching they have come up with, contributed to and driven some really great initiatives across to business based on your feedback.
Internal Communications Strategy •
A weekly HR Update now goes out every Friday through the People HR News Channel giving everyone information on people-led initiatives, support and gentle reminders of things relating to your employment.
•
Six-weekly department presentations/ town halls were formalised and we now have a rolling calendar of guest speakers.
•
The CULTure Collective launched a bi-monthly newsletter with updates on their initiatives and even a ‘Spotlight on….’ Series that sees them interview people across the business, helping us all get to know our colleagues better.
•
Quarterly Business updates are on the horizon and we are hoping to launch these in the second quarter of this financial year.
•
Ongoing, Leaders committed to cascade information departmentally as and when important updates are issued.
"Now, six months later, it’s time for you to tell us how you are feeling again. The survey will be the same format as the last round. For those who weren’t here for the first one guidance will be sent out. In order to benchmark ourselves to see where we have come from and where we have gone to, the same questions will be asked. This is imperative if we want to get a clear picture of how we are tracking over time. As before, the survey is 100% anonymous. Any comments made will be visible to HR & the senior leadership team only. It’s really important that you are as honest as you feel comfortable being. Your honest feedback is the only way we can continue to do what we do well and seek to make improvements in areas where we fall short." Best wishes, Maxine
An update from Mental Health First Aiders Whether you’re still lamenting the loss to Italy or glad to see the back of the hysteria, the Euros football tournament was inescapable this Summer. One positive aspect of the campaign that we noticed coming through the messaging on ITV was their new mental wellness initiative Britain Get Talking, supported by charities Mind and Youngminds. If you haven’t heard of this but are intrigued, please see the link below where you can find some of the interviews with celebrities and sportspeople (naturally Ant and Dec make an appearance too) who speak to their own experience with mental health, as well as some top tips on how to help yourself and those around you. https://www.itv.com/britaingettalking/ Please also remember we’re here if you’d like to talk and you can arrange a chat via our email address, mentalhealthfirstaiders@cultbeauty.co.uk.
Spotlight on... Eid-Ul-Adha with Karim Jiwani First of all, let's introduce Karim! Who are you and what do you do at Cult Beauty: I am a Logistics Manager with over 25 years of experience in Freight, Logistics and Customs. I have been with Cult Beauty for 10 months now and very much enjoyed the journey so far. I really love the diverse culture within the Cult Beauty and the people that I work with. Currently, I am training for my 4th Iron Man Triathlon, which I am hoping to compete in September this year.!
What is Eid and what does it mean to you? I am practising Ismaili Muslim which is very personal to me as it is helped me grow spiritually and to respect our own traditional values and beliefs. But more importantly to respect and gain an understanding about other religions too. In my spare time I am also a volunteer with my religious community. Our mission is offering to serve the wider communities wherever they reside. These will include volunteer at soup kitchens, homeless shelters, park clean-ups, and training sessions for the aged, among many more.
Some of us might not know what Eid is and how Muslims celebrate it around the world. So here are a few questions that might help us get a better understanding: 1. What is Eid-Ul-Adha? Eid al-Adha is known as the festival of sacrifice. The day of Eid-Ul-Adha falls on the tenth day in the final (twelfth) month of the Islamic Lunar Calendar. The celebration of Eid-Ul-Adha is to commemorate Prophet Ibrahim’s devotion to Allah. And his readiness to sacrifice his son, Ismail. At the very point of sacrifice, Allah replaced Ismail with a ram, which was to be slaughtered in place of his son. This command from Allah was a test of Prophet Ibrahim’s willingness and commitment to obey his Lord’s command, without question. Therefore, Eid-Ul-Adha means the festival of “sacrifice”.
2. What is the difference between Eid-ul-Fitr and Eid-Ul-Adha Eid ul-Fitr marks the end of Ramadan and lasts for one day. It is a celebration of Allah giving you the strength to get through the Ramadan. This means Eid ul-Fitr comes before Eid-Ul-Adha and therefore is the first of the Eid’s.
3. Why is it important in Islam, and what does it symbolise for Muslims? Eid is a very important festival in the Islamic calendar and was started by the Prophet Muhammad. Muslims are not only celebrating the end of fasting during Eid, but also thanking Allah for the strength that he’s provided to exercise self-control throughout the month of fasting. If necessary, they would ask for forgiveness if they failed to keep the fast at any point. • The festival day begins with the first sighting of the new moon at the beginning of the tenth month of the Islamic calendar. • Muslims wear their best clothes, decorate their homes, and spend time celebrating with their friends and family. • Some Muslims may give money to the poor so that the can also enjoy the day. 4. How do you celebrate it? As I do a lot of voluntary work within my community during the last Eid Ul Adha, celebrations (pre-covid) there are large numbers of Muslims within my community who were able to attend due to Eid which fell on a Sunday. In London, there was a day long cultural programme celebrating the diversity of our community. • In Europe - Amsterdam and Venusberg, they enjoyed refreshments and entertainment after (Namaz) Prayers
"Wishing a happy and peaceful Eid-ul-Adha to all those celebrating"
An update from the Social & Charity Committee “We’re so passionate about each quarter’s charity, trying our hardest to ensure we’re raising funds for the charity selected by our people! *TRIGGER WARNING* The following content contains sensitive topics.
Every five minutes in the UK someone is raped. One in four women and one in six men have experienced sexual violence. 15% of girls and 5% of boys have experienced sexual violence by the time they are sixteen. The Survivors Trust provides information, advice, support and therapy to over 80,000 individual survivors each year and our donation at the end of the quarter will help maintain this support.
While the topic of sexual assault is extremely confronting, knowing how to deal with it, whether it be talking to a friend/ colleague, overhearing a conversation or consuming it, The Survivor’s Trust website has some really useful resources on how to help victims. The Survivors Trust is our charity until the 30th August. Our first event was the raffle which raised £1,000 and our next event will be communicated to you in the next few days, with some firm fundraising favourites to follow.
Calendar of events July SUNDAY
MONDAY
TUESDAY
WEDNESDAY
THURSDAY 1
FRIDAY
SATURDAY
2
3
Group Strep B Awareness Month
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17 Fast of Tisha B’Av
18
19
20
21
22
23
Eid ul Adha
24 Asalha Puja (Dharma Day) The Big Listen – Samaritans Awareness Day
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
August SUNDAY 1
MONDAY 2
TUESDAY 3
Black Business Month
8
WEDNESDAY 4
THURSDAY
FRIDAY
SATURDAY
5
6
7
12
13
14
**STAFF SALE**
9
10 Al-Hijra (Islamic New Year)
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30 BANK HOLIDAY! Krishna Janmashtami
We’re recruiting! The CULTure Collective is looking for a:
• Communications Lead • Priority Action Lead Communications Lead, what is the role? Take the lead on all of the communications of the CULTure Collective activity, sharing outputs across various channels to ensure the business is kept informed of our initiatives and updates.
Priority Action Lead, what is the role? Lead on the delivery of the priority focus area and their supporting actions, manage all deliverables, ensure they are delivered in time, steer deliverables in line with CULTure Committee aims and objectives, and alignment to Cult Beauty aims and objectives overall and manage any escalations and have oversight of any resources additional support etc needed for delivery. If you are interested or just want to find out more please email: info.culturecollective@cultbeauty.co.uk
Want to get in touch? You can contact your team representative directly by email, have a call, chat or you can email the group on: Info.culturecollective@cultbeauty.co.uk
A reminder of your reps BUYING Bessie ( Priority Action Lead) Hayley (Treasurer) CONTENT + PERFORMANCE MARKETING Vicky (Deputy Co-Chair) Vic (Priority Action Lead) Lydia ( Priority Action Lead) Korede (Priority Action Lead) Eva (Comms Lead) CUSTOMER OPERATIONS Wonu (Priority Action Lead) CUSTOMER OPERATIONS + CULT CONCIERGE Marta (Events Lead) CUSTOMER SERVICE Iram (Events Lead) DC OPERATIONS Karim (Priority Action Lead)
FINANCE + ALL Alicia (Chair) MERCHANDISING Janine (Secretary)
TECH + CRM
Denise (Deputy Co-Chair)
THE CULTURE COLLECTIVE
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