our people
"Tarmac’s Professional Operator Development Programme is much more than just a training course. Individuals learn about the Tarmac Way – our why, our ways of working and our values, giving colleagues a deeper understanding of how our business works.”
Heather Ankers, operations training manager
Developing our people in a safe, inclusive, fair and supportive environment is key to the long-term success of our business. We want all our people to feel proud of the work they do, to make the most of their career and development opportunities and be fully engaged in achieving our business goals.
highlights
National Skills as Safety Park
Opened by His Royal Highness The Duke of Cambridge
Achieved Clear Assured - Bronze
Diversity and Inclusion
21,000
face to face, virtual classroom and e-learning sessions
Our commitment is to be an employer of choice and be an organisation with a truly inclusive culture. We also know that when our employees feel included, and have a sense of belonging, they have the best opportunity to realise their potential and contribute to the best of their ability. This will accelerate creativity, learning and new ways of thinking - all of which drive business performance.
Development Opportunities for All
Attracting and retaining the best talent is a challenge faced by many industries in today's competitive jobs market. By fostering a culture of continuous development for our employees, we can attract and grow the talent and capabilities needed to drive performance now and to rise to the strategic challenges we face in the future.
Developing and investing in our employee’s potential at all levels of our business is fundamental to Tarmac’s long term strategic growth. Whatever their starting point, we can help employees to fully develop their talents through learning and development programmes and work-based training.
We have some excellent in-house development programmes for our employees at all levels, with a mixture of on-the-job development and off-site learning. Our Professional Operator Development Programme (PODP) and Apprentices programmes offer a vocational qualification to take on roles such as operatives and fitters, while some also work towards a degree. While our Graduates take on a variety of roles across the business including technical, finance and general management roles.
5% Club
Our commitment to the development of young people is demonstrated by continuing to be an active member of the 5% Club. The 5% Club is a dynamic movement of employer-members working to create “earn and learn” skills training opportunities across the UK by driving the recruitment of apprentices, sponsored students and graduates. Members aspire to achieve 5% of their workforce in ‘earn and learn’ positions (including apprentices, sponsored students and graduates on formalised training schemes) within five years of joining. Tarmac achieved 2.6% in 2020 a performance that was impacted by the pandemic. We will continue to work towards meeting 5% target going forward to 2030.
National Skills and Safety Park
In February, His Royal Highness The Duke of Cambridge marked the official opening of our National Skills and Safety Park by meeting several of Tarmac’s apprentices and graduates, as well as trying his hand at road building and trialling cutting edge quarrying and occupational health simulators. The Park provides practical, hands-on training for emerging industry talent – including apprentices, graduates and those retraining from other sectors.
Despite 2020’s challenging circumstances, the facility has already supported nearly 700 employees through over 21,000 face to face, virtual classroom and e-learning sessions since its inauguration. It has also supported 34 individuals graduate from our own accredited Professional Operator Development Programme qualification.
Creating a fair and supportive culture that promotes opportunities for all where everyone is proud to be themselves, influences both the decisions we make and the direction of our business. We continued to take positive actions to foster diversity and inclusion and further increase the diversity of our people during 2020.
Clear Assured Bronze
To evidence the progress we are making in our inclusion and diversity journey, we sought external verification of our approach and were proud to achieve a globally recognised accreditation for our commitment to inclusion and diversity in the workplace. The Clear Assured Bronze Standard, from assessment body The Clear Company, is awarded to businesses which can demonstrate inclusivity and diversity are reflected across all policies and processes. As a result, we are now confident we have the right foundations in place on which to build upon.
Employee community hubs
Plans to develop our virtual ‘employee communities’ commenced in 2020 – these saw the creation of safe spaces hosted on our intranet where people can chat and share ideas. Our initial employee communities include:
• Women aka Female Voice
• Parents and carers
• BAME
• LGBTQ+
• Mental health and wellbeing
• Inclusion & Diversity champions
These communities underpin the needs of our employees and each one is supported by one of our directors, ensuring that employees’ voices are heard at the highest level and barriers are removed.
Inclusive Policies
In 2020, we launched an updated maternity policy, to upgrade both financial and personal support. We are excited to be able to offer attractive policies for women which we anticipate will help with retention within the business, such as enhanced maternity pay duration, pension contributions, measures to support going on and returning from maternity leave and a system of maternity buddies to provide an enhanced support.
Unconscious Bias Training
In 2020, we continued to deliver our Unconscious Bias training programme to over 300 leaders across the business, which we are now delivering virtually. The aim of the training is to challenge perceptions and create awareness of implicit bias and eliminate any unconscious discriminatory behaviours in the business.
Gender Pay Report
We recognise that having an inclusive and diverse workforce is an important step to reducing the gender pay gap. It is a fact that our sector is traditionally male dominated, so we continue to make sustainable long-term changes in our approach in order to recruit and retain women, while ensuring we continue to provide equal opportunities to all.
Every business with over 250 or more employees must produce a Gender Pay Gap Report, in line with Government requirements. Our 2020 report outlines what these figures mean and describes some of the actions we are taking.
Looking forward
Having reached the end of 2020, we are about to launch the next phase of our sustainability strategy. Our people are key to the success of our business and we will continue to strive to be an employer of choice. Although we have made significant progress with our inclusion and diversity programme, we plan to build on these successes over the coming years. In order to drive our business forward and achieve our sustainability goals we must provide training opportunities for all employees to realise their potential and develop talent by attracting the next generation of employees.