Study Tour

How large businesses can work in small towns - Skipton Building Society

Case study: Skipton Building Society

The following is a summary from the study tour on day one of the convention ‘How large businesses can work in small towns - the case of the Skipton Building Society’

Introduction

Skipton Building Society employs over 2,000 people in a town and hinterland with a total population of under 15,000. The Society is committed to its local community but recognises that if it chose to move to larger urban areas, it would increase its employment pool and site options.
This study tour examined the challenges posed for Skipton Building Society in working with such a small pool of potential employees and looked at how Skipton Building Society have adapted their people policies and taken other initiatives to manage this challenge.
The session was hosted by Gill Davidson, Secretary and General Manager, responsible for People Support and Development and Chris Worts, Head of People Support and Development.

Content

The Skipton is today the 6th largest Building Society (Mutual) and employs over 2,000 people locally. The majority travel in from under 10 miles, although the catchment area is such that 25% of employees travel in from a distance of 10-20 miles and more than 20% travel in from over 20 miles. Although the population of Skipton is just under 15,000, the population that falls within the catchment area is nearer 100,000. Skipton is on a direct rail line to Leeds and Bradford.
The Society strategy is to be an employer of choice and as such has been an early adopter of Investor in People, and similar initiatives. They have an ethos built into the core employee/employer values of trust, fairness, enthusiasm and ownership.
Employee turnover at its Skipton Head Office is 14% and attracting and keeping staff is a key priority. The minimum education standards required for employment is 5 GCSE’s.
Skipton Building Society considers the major advantage of its Head Office location in Skipton being the high quality of life associated with living in Skipton, the excellent local schools, strong town centre and the good transport infrastructure, with the railway links. They consider that they have a strong workforce despite the restrictions that they operate under.
To promote their positive image locally, (corporate responsibility) Gill explained that they support 20 student scholarships a year. Skipton has two excellent schools (secondary) and 77% of students go on to higher education locally. This compares to the national rate of approximately 50%. Skipton has recently launched an apprenticeship scheme to support school leavers who have not yet attained the minimum entry qualifications.
Given the need to encourage and compete for good staff, the Society has been promoting flexible arrangements and for example now the number of employees working 9-5 is in decline and other arrangements are increasing. Some students are returning to Skipton and the Building Society, having begun careers elsewhere. These employees are regarded as ‘winbacks’ and the Society is looking at how to encourage these.

Group Discussion

The study tour group discussed how issues such as a strong retail sector are interdependent with the presence of business, good schools and good insfrastructure.