Better for everyone

Our progress so far

For further information on our performance, please visit our Reports & Policies page for our Plan for Better report. 

We are committed to providing relevant, accessible learning resources and experiences that ensure colleagues are clear on our legal obligations and support them in obtaining the skills they need to be effective in their role.

To support this, we offer a wide range of flexible learning opportunities, designed to inspire colleagues to learn and grow throughout their Sainsbury’s career. Our learning offer – described as excellent in our most recent Investors in People report - is openly available to all colleagues and enables them to personalise their learning journey and learn in the best way for them. The offer is incredibly diverse – from topics such as customer service and store safety, through supplier negotiation, project management, software engineering and leadership, as well as inclusion, wellbeing, financial services and data analysis.

Our approach

Our approach to talent ensures that we enable all colleagues to be the best they can be. We give all colleagues the autonomy to develop, whether this focusses on career progression or being an expert in their role. We make it simple by letting them personalise the content they need, providing a network of mentors and sponsors and where necessary, programmes to give them the skills and experiences they need for a fulfilling and varied career.

It is also important that we identify those colleagues who have the potential to add the most value to the business. We can then focus additional investment in a more personalised approach, to retain and develop them to maximise their potential. Everyday feedback and honest conversations about development both to support performance and achieve career aspirations is a key unlocker for us to ensure we work at pace, drive innovation, and build strong relationships with one another.

The past year has seen a massive switch to digital activities and ways of working.  To support this change, we have adapted our learning materials to support colleagues in this transition.  Providing performance support materials such as user guides, online live classes, or short videos we provide key learning support where and when our colleagues need it. We continue to review the impact of these activities and will use these principles to shape our future learning offer for all colleagues, wherever they are based.

We have an evolving apprenticeship offer to support our developing business needs. We work with industry leading professionals, who have specialist knowledge in their area of delivery, equipping colleagues with the skills they need and enabling them to earn whilst they learn. 

Working in collaboration

We work with the learning and development teams at the British Retail consortium (BRC) and the Institute of Grocery Distribution (IGD) to support sectoral research and development opportunities.

We work closely with the teams at IfAET and Skills Development Scotland to support the development of future apprenticeship programmes that will deliver the skills we need. We also work with several trailblazer groups and the Retail Skills quality board to ensure the quality of the development solutions, delivers what we need for our colleagues.

We continue to strengthen our partnership with suppliers by providing free digital learning via our Supplier Academy to our fresh and grocery suppliers. They have access to up to 20 on-demand modules, ensuring that we are aligned on our key systems, process, and ways of working so we can work more effectively together.