CASE STUDY

PUTTING FAIR WORK TO WORK MIELES GELATERIA, INVERNESS

Mieles Gelateria is an award-winning family business established in Inverness in 2016. The company has grown rapidly and now employs 20 permanent staff and another 20 during the peak summer season. The business already operates a fair work culture and is committed to paying the Living Wage, but the management team is keen to build on these foundations as they continue to expand.

Developing a Fair Work Action Plan has enabled them to focus on some of the challenges they face, in particular recruiting and retaining staff, and communicating the career opportunities on offer. One option being considered is seconding staff for short periods of time to work in different areas of the business. This would allow employees to experience different roles that will help them to make informed decisions about their careers. With very active, social media feeds, the business is also considering the potential opportunity for the wider team to write posts to add to the ethos of shared responsibility within the business day to day. Other areas being investigated under the fair work banner include setting up a robust onboarding process with compliant paperwork and a training plan for everyone joining and creating a company organisation chart that can be shared to highlight the different roles and opportunities that exist within the business.

REFLECTING ON PROGRESS, DAVID MEILE, COMMENTED:

“The best thing to happen has been better engagement with the workforce. We introduced better training plans, but one of most rewarding developments was the introduction of the ‘Special of the Week’. Every other week a staff member got to develop a ‘weekly special’ ice-cream and price it and we would then promote it in the Inverness parlour and on social media. We would then introduce the staff member to the public as the creator – and this has most definitely helped with staff retention and staff engagement. For our team, this is a rewarding opportunity to be a mini entrepreneur.”