Case study – Our people in an extraordinary year

In January 2021, we started the year with a head count of 559. The Job Retention Scheme was utilised during the first three months of the year as we experienced a period of temporary closure due to Covid restrictions – approximately 70% of staff supported the zoo by taking a period of furlough or flexi-furlough during this time.

Well-being

The well-being of our people was a key focus for 2021, and a cross-departmental well-being project was set up in April. The CIPD Mental Health at Work framework was utilised to provide the structure needed to align several different streams of activity that would support the overall goal of improving the well-being of our people. During May 2021, the Well-being at Work Guide was developed and launched, partnering with an external training provider. 38 managers attended Mental Health Awareness training during 2021, and 18 well-being-related activities and events took place during 2021, attended by over 100 members of staff. Significant investment in staff welfare facilities further supported staff at the end of the year.

Learning and development

In February we launched a new eLearning platform with high-quality, video-based training courses, which condense learning into engaging, manageable pieces. Characters, themes and stories are used to bring learning to life and make it more memorable. The first library made available was a non-mandatory mental health collection, followed by our own bespoke courses. Since launch, more than 700 people from across the zoo completed and passed at least one course and more than 6,000 eLearning courses have been completed. Over 800 of these courses were non-mandatory.

In addition to the eLearning, more than 530 individual learning experiences have taken place in 2021, which have been delivered both externally and internally and range from customer service training, health & safety and autism awareness to chainsaw and tractor training.

Equality, diversity and inclusion

We are committed to encouraging equality, diversity and inclusion among our workforce, and our aim is for our employees to be a true representation of all sections of society, and for all of our staff to feel respected and able to give their best. A bespoke Equality, Diversity and Inclusion eLearning course was made available for all staff, while managers were invited to attend a virtual facilitator-led session to increase awareness, and continue to identify barriers and take appropriate action.

Recruitment

Head count increased to 906 employees when our seasonal staff joined us during our peak summer season, helping us to create a fantastic experience for our visitors. We welcomed 117 permanent and fixed-term new starters in 2021, 376 seasonal staff, and there were 64 internal moves to new roles. Eight kick-starter placements took place within our Facilities, IT, CE&E and People teams, supporting young people in the local community.

Recruitment continues to be a key activity as the zoo grows, and a new applicant tracking system was implemented in November, which will enable a better candidate journey and provide additional accessibility tools to support our equality, diversity and inclusion aims throughout the recruitment process.

Staff engagement survey

This year we worked with The Engagement Coach to create a bespoke staff survey relevant to our organisation, providing the opportunity for our people to feed back on what it’s like to work at the zoo. Our staff survey was live for two weeks in October and 76% of employees participated in the survey. This response rate means we can be confident the results represent the views of the majority of our people. The survey contained 35 questions exploring themes around employee experience, our culture and mission, leadership and teams, reward and learning & development. Our overall engagement score of 77% demonstrates high levels of employee engagement, with questions around our mission, working with caring people and working towards a common goal scoring most highly.

Sustainable Development Goals:

Our people are key to all that we do, and on average we employed 725 people in 2021 in support of SDG 8 (Decent Work & Economic Growth), our focus on staff well-being supports SDG 3 (Good Health & Well-being) and our focus on E,D&I supports SDG 10 (Reduced Inequalities).