1. Platinum is trying to create the following:
You go out and recruit people, and you do it so well, that they are passionate about your business. You set really clear expectations and objectives and get the buy in of your employees by providing a range of rewards (anything from a bonus to a simple thankyou) and as a result, they stay motivated. They also stay with you forever, because not only do you provide a supportive environment to work in, but you provide brilliant training and career development that keeps them learning and challenging themselves.
Specsavers – Platinum Employer Delivering a great employment experience James Turner, Head of HR, UK Projects

2. Our history
In just over 30 years, we have gone from one store in the south west of England to an international company with an annual revenue of £2.18 billion.
Founded in 1984 by Doug and Dame Mary Perkins from a table-tennis table in their spare room
First Specsavers-branded store was opened in Bristol. The grew to offer audiology services in 2002 and since 2013 domicilary services.
Following this we started entering international markets
Today we are the world’s largest privately owned optical group with more than 1,800 stores and hearing centres operating across 10 countries
Specsavers is a Partnership of more than 2,400 locally-run businesses.
Back in 1984, Doug and Mary pioneered the optical joint venture partnership model and also revolutionised the industry with their innovative concept of affordable, fashionable eyecare for everyone, at a time when high prices for optical care and limited choice were the norm. (remember the brown tortoise shell NHs specs?)
As a privately owned company, Specsavers is able to make sound business decisions for the long term that are not influenced by shareholders. And it is not a faceless corporation. It is a company run by optical and hearing care professionals for customers.

3. Countries in which we operate
Market leader in eight of the ten countries in which we operate

4. So why Platinum Employer
Recruitment and retention of staff is highly competitive
Consistency of employee experience

5. What is Platinum Employer
An externally validated accreditation scheme
Sets minimum benchmark standards
Covers the whole employee life cycle experience
Provides tools and support to achieve standards
Remember I talked about utopia earlier – well that’s Platinum Employer – but with the added benefit that it gives you help and guidelines on what you need to do in order to get there – as well as a regular annual check in, to make sure you don’t forget about making the good things happen.
Worked with Hay Group (now Hay Korn Ferry) to develop standards that stand up externally to the “platinum” standard – they have also been involved in the design and levels of assessment, in what a pass and what a fail looks like
Effectively an Investors in people – cheaper, quicker, less intrusive – ultimately in true retail style, delivers results. (our stores are all individual, so can’t just achieve investors in people centrally and pass it round everywhere) Similar to Investors in people (IIP). However, investors in people is very onerous from an administrative and cost perspective (would be c£4000 per store). With Platinum employer we have created our own version of IIP aspirational standards relevant to Specsavers.

6. What are the standards? Recruitment & Induction
Performance Management and Reward
Talent Management
Learning and Development
Employee communications and engagement
These were created with a work group – HR, C of Es, partners, regional managers and Hay Group

7. Benefits of delivering Platinum: Improved Employee engagement
Harvard business school research has shown that a 1% increase in staff loyalty, leads to a 0.5% increase in customer loyalty – spending time to get loyal and engaged staff, is a sound investment!

8. Benefits of delivering Platinum: Enhanced customer KPIs
There is now strong evidence to show that Platinum approved stores are out performing their non- approved counterparts. This is most significant across the range of customer service scores, as shown below. Notable differences are hearcare awareness: up 9.3% for Platinum stores and CL aware up 8.8% on the non-Platinum stores (FY 16/17).

9. Benefits of delivering Platinum: Improved profitability
Non-Platinum stores
Platinum stores
This chart demonstrates the improvement to operating profit that stores who have been on the Platinum journey have experienced. This is an average figure, comparing all Platinum stores (in green), against non Platinum stores (blue)
The mid point or “zero” on the horizontal axis, indicates the point at which the store has become Platinum accredited.
Point of Platinum accreditation

10. Questions
Look out for a Platinum employer store in a town near you!