Our people
Our colleague member-owners each own a piece of our Co-op and have a say in how we do things, so being part of our Co-op as a colleague isn’t like working anywhere else. We’re part of something different, a movement that’s over 6 million strong.
Download the 'Our people' section of the Sustainability and Social Value report 2024 (PDF, 794KB)
Colleague wellbeing
In 2024, we continued to use our colleague insights to improve our physical, mental and financial wellbeing support for our colleagues and their families, delivering events such as Mental Health Awareness Week, World Mental Health Day and Talk Money Week.
We launched a new Colleague Support Programme for colleagues and their families. Delivered by GroceryAid, the service includes free mental health support for children, and relationship counselling. Our financial wellbeing strategy won 2 prizes at the Employee Benefits awards. A key part of our offering, Wagestream, now has 15,000 colleagues signed up, accessing £22m worth of support a year.
Engagement and culture
Once again, we’ve increased our pay rates to align with the Real Living Wage, and all our Customer Team members in our stores received a pay increase of 10.1%. We’ve also continued offering a discount of 30% to all colleagues on own-brand products (excluding alcohol).
In 2024, we continued to work alongside our colleague networks, trade unions and colleague insight channels to revise our people policies, such as increasing our maternity and adoption pay for eligible colleagues to 20 weeks’ full pay, and doubling paternity pay for eligible colleagues from 2 to 4 weeks. Our leading fertility treatment policy provides flexible paid time off for colleagues to attend medical appointments whilst undergoing fertility treatment. We’ve also been supporting charities to campaign on specific issues including the Miscarriage Association’s Leave For Every Loss campaign.
Learning and Development
Our Apprenticeship programme continued to support colleagues across over 50 different standards ranging from level 2 to 7. We had over 570 apprentices in 2024, and launched our first Logistics Women in Leadership apprenticeship programme. We were also recognised in the top 100 apprenticeship employers.
Health and safety
Keeping colleagues, partners, and members of the public safe is central to running our Co-op.
Since 2018, our Safer Colleagues Safer Communities Campaign has aimed to make our colleagues safer through our action as a business and through securing greater protection in law for shopworkers. In 2024, the Government pledged to make assaulting a shopworker a standalone offence across the UK.
