Fresh News August 2016

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The magazine for Morrisons colleagues

Have you heard?

Listening and responding is at the heart of our business p10

Fresh Look update • Price Crunch • Road to Rio and much more…

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listening hard and responding quickly

an introduction from andy

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In the mag...

Listening hard and

responding quickly

4 News 6 Online ideas – offline benefits 8 Good to know it’s Morrisons 9 Rathbones is back in business 10 Listening hard and responding quickly wherever possible 12 Shopping with our customers 14 Fresh Look 16 Giving something back 18 The social

Get in touch Here’s how you can contact us:

We’re an organisation that listens hard to our customers, colleagues, shareholders and suppliers and, wherever possible, responds quickly. s food makers and shopkeepers, every one of us can take steps to improve the shopping trip for our customers. And, as part of the Morrisons team, make this a great place to work for our colleagues.

Many of you share your thoughts and opinions through our Colleague Facebook page and, as a result, you help to shape our business.

Throughout this issue you’ll see examples of the good work we’re doing across the company to listen hard and respond quickly.

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Save a stamp and post internally to Company Communications.

Look out for our Good to know it’s Morrisons signs

to share them with us and there are lots of ways to talk and listen to each other.

Great value We want to be known for offering good quality fresh food at great value. On page seven, you can read about our continuing Price Crunch campaign which demonstrates our commitment to great value for our customers.

Teamwork

Email your stories and pictures to company.communications @morrisonsplc.co.uk To sign up to Colleague Facebook email facebook@ morrisonsplc.co.uk

On page four, you’ll see how we’ve improved our Back to School range. Take a look at page eight to read our Good to know it’s Morrisons, which explains lots of the things we do that make us unique as food makers and shopkeepers. And there’s an article about our Fresh Look stores programme on page 14.

Listening and responding isn’t just about our customers, it’s also about talking to each other to find ways to improve your team, your department and your own store and site, and then making the changes.

You’ve told us you have ideas and views and want

Listening hard to our customers

You can share your views and ideas on Colleague Facebook, get involved with the new Your Say forums, or simply talk to the people you work with. Wherever you work, please take every opportunity to talk to our customers, listen hard and respond quickly.

Our success depends on every one of us taking steps every day to improve the shopping trip for our customers and making Morrisons a great place to work.

Andy Atkinson, Group Marketing Director august2016

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The latest news from right around our business.

Add good quality to great value, multiply it by Nutmeg’s thoughtful little details and it equals a Back to School range that mums and dads will want to buy.

in style

school we ar

no-quibb guarantele e

ur customers tell us they need a school uniform that lasts and has room for kids to grow. One that’s easy to clean and iron so that it stays looking good, is comfy with no itchy labels, and most importantly is great value.

O

Top of the class

With 2-pack polo shirts and jumpers starting at £2, and cardigans, trousers and skirts from £3, our prices are hard to beat. This year, we’re adding a 200-day no-quibble guarantee, as Amy Banks, Marketing Manager – Activity Planning, says: “We listened to our customers who said they were delighted by how good the quality is. Now they can be really confident.

If our Nutmeg school uniform doesn’t last 200 days we’ll replace it or give them their money back – no questions asked.”

Thank you 4

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Lee Heseltine, Beverley A customer’s young son was in hospital and she wanted to buy him a Batman gun he’d seen but it had sold out. Lee picked one up from another store on his day off especially for the little boy.

What’s so great about Back to School?

Customers also told us they had trouble finding our school uniforms so we responded quickly by using our new front of store fixture in 250 stores, so that our customers can’t miss it.

All packed up

Parents tell us that they buy fewer lunch boxes for younger children, now that Year 1 and 2 children can all have free school meals.

They also say older kids prefer popular ‘Bento’ lunch boxes, with compartments for fruit, sandwiches and drinks. So, after listening hard, we’ve responded with a range of popular character lunch boxes and a choice of Bento boxes in different colours, so there’s something for everyone.

Lots of room to grow = adjustable waists Perfect for playtime = slip-resistant plimsolls Comfy all day long = all-cotton polos Kind on kids’ skin = soft knitwear Stay smarter for longer = bobble-free tights No itchiness = no labels on the neck Bring on the mud! = teflon coated Ready in minutes = easy-iron shirts

Tony Jenkinson, Gadbrook Logistics Tony was first on the scene at a road accident. His Community First Responder training kicked in and he made sure the victim was kept safe and not moved until the paramedics arrived.

business NEWS

An

unexpected delivery

Our Weymouth store almost had a surprise delivery when customer Sara-Jane Pittaway went into labour in the café in June. uty Manager and first aider Jerry Whyton, and his team, responded quickly.

They fetched towels from the shelves and did their best to keep Sara-Jane as comfortable as possible. Jerry even spoke to a midwife for advice, just in case the baby arrived before the ambulance!

The paramedics got there just in time and the store team made sure that Sara-Jane could get to the ambulance in complete privacy. Baby Jacob James

D

Patrick was born five minutes after they got to the hospital.

Sara-Jane said: “Jerry and his team went above and beyond to help me.

I’m so grateful for the way they looked after me.”

A few days later, Jerry and the team met baby Jacob when Sara-Jane brought him into store to say thank you. The store gave them a trolley full of baby products to celebrate Jacob’s safe arrival.

Baby Event Luckily for new mum, Sara-Jane (right), our Baby Event starts on 15th August. Keep an eye out in store and on the seasonal aisle for some great offers, making us your one-stop-shop for all your baby care needs.

Olympic dream

When Great Britain’s Olympic team flew out to Rio, Derek Hawkins, from the Fresh Food team at Johnstone, was with them.

Sue Ward, Parkgate Every week, Sue helps an elderly lady with her shopping.

Sue often stays after her cleaning shift has finished, and even came in during her holiday to shop with the customer.

erek, along with his younger D brother Callum, was picked for the Olympic marathon team after finishing the London Marathon in 2 hours, 12 minutes and 57 seconds. Jim Moir, Store Manager at Johnstone, says: “It’s fantastic for Derek. We’re all very proud of him and we’ve supported him over the years when he’s been training with the British team. We know that our customers and everyone in store will be cheering for Derek and Callum on Sunday 21st August, when they compete.”

Fiona Marzella, Carmondean When a customer asked for indigestion tablets, Fiona, the Pharmacist, thought her symptoms sounded serious and sent her to hospital. The grateful customer later called to say she’d been diagnosed and treated for a heart problem. august2016

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business NEWS

Putting on a

Great Yorkshire Show

At events like last month’s Great Yorkshire Show, England’s biggest agricultural show, we have the opportunity to listen to lots of different people, and show them the things we do really well. round 130,000 people visit the Great Yorkshire Show over three days. It’s a great chance to talk to people about what we do, listen to what they have to say, and show how we’re food makers and shopkeepers,” says Katie Smith, People Advisor – Events.

“A

There were fun activities to attract people onto our stand, including a kids’ area where children could dig for carrots and decorate cookies. The ‘Morrisons Tree’ was decorated with leaves that had Good to know it’s Morrisons messages on one side (p8) and space for visitors to write their comments on the other.

Hayley Mulholland, Southport A customer wanted cream cakes for a party but they were sold out, so Hayley made some more especially for her. The delighted customer wrote in praising Hayley’s wonderful service.

There were also demonstrations by our Market Street Butcher, Baker and Deli colleagues, who showed visitors some of the recipes and products that we make fresh in store every day, like our cheese platters.

Crunching

more prices

ustomers tell us that C as well as having good quality products, we need to be competitive on price.

They also said they liked it when we cut the price of more than 1,000 products in our first Price Crunch in February. On the 1st August, we cut more prices on the products our customers want.

We’ve lowered the price of more than 1,500 products across the store in the latest Price Crunch, including iceberg lettuce, down to 41p, nectarines down to 68p and M Everyday Tea is now just 85p.

“Price Crunch is just one of the things we’re doing to be more competitive.

Because we’re cutting the price of the staples many of our customers shop for every week, we know it’ll help to make shopping with us even better value,” says Darren Blackhurst, Group Commercial Director.

And it’s easy for our customers to spot our new lower prices because all our Price Crunch products have bright yellow shelf labels.

Laura Wheatley, Hinckley Laura advised a customer who needed plants for a village display.

The customer not only bought a lot of plants but wrote thanking Laura for her ‘excellent service’.

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GOOD TO KNOW IT’S MORRISONS

goodtoknow That’s

At the start of August we launched Good to know it’s Morrisons.

It’s one way to let our customers know about the extras we do that makes Morrisons a great place to shop. n customer listening groups over the last few months, we listened hard to the things our customers like, and what they want to know about the products they buy.

Before we knew it, we had more than 50 specific examples of things we do that they love.

For example, do your customers know we buy our meat direct from farms, or that we’ll bake them giant personalised cookies? They may seem like small things, but for our customers, they’re good to know.

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Saying it loud and proud “Our customers also told us that British produce is important to them,” says Andy Atkinson, Group Marketing Director. “So it’s important that we explain our counter meat is 100% British, direct from the farm – and our trained butchers are happy to prepare any cut of meat to their liking.

“This is our response. Good to know it’s Morrisons is about us

showing our customers that they get more from us than they might realise.”

There are over 50 Good to knows – and you’ll already know plenty. You’ll see them in stores soon, so let’s tell our customers about them

We’re signing up Over the next few months, all our stores will get new signs telling our customers about our Good to knows. We’ll be able to change these signs easily with seasonal messages.

You’ll also see a Morrisons ‘tree’ logo with Good to know it’s Morrisons messages on it near checkouts and exit aisles.

From boat to basket Our cod and haddock is line-caught and smoked in our own kiln in Grimsby.

Our skilled fishmongers can skin, fillet and debone fish, and they’ll recommend flavoured butter or rubs and recipes.

“All of our seafood is responsibly sourced and bought directly from fishermen’s boats,” says Andy.

“We’ll even loan our customers a fish poacher for free.”

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rathbones

The Baker’s Dozen with the first loaves

Rathbones is back in business The fire at our Rathbones Bakery brought out the best in you. n 3rd July a fire broke out O on one of the production lines at our Rathbones Bakery.

Thanks to a quick response from our colleagues and the fire brigade, everyone was evacuated safely.

In an amazing turnaround, less than three days later, the first loaf of bread came off the production line.

After seven days it was almost business-as-usual, and we were back to delivering 2.5 million loaves and rolls each week to stores.

Andrew Thornber, Manufacturing Managing Director, says: “Our site colleagues worked round-the-clock to get things back on track, but we couldn’t have done it alone. Around 50 colleagues from Hilmore responded by helping us clean, and teams throughout the business did everything they could to support us and get the site working again.

It really was an incredible show of Teamwork.”

What does it mean for our customers?

Our customers have been able to buy their bread, rolls and other Rathbones products as usual, thanks to your great Teamwork. Our suppliers have also helped out, providing some products, like sliced bread and muffins, until those lines were up and running again.

What does it mean for our colleagues?

We’re incredibly proud of the way all of our colleagues responded to the fire, including those who weren’t involved but wrote messages of support on Colleague Facebook.

What happens next?

The buildings destroyed by the fire have been cleared and work has already started on the new warehouse and bakery buildings. august2016

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Listening and responding

Listening to our customers and to each other, and then responding, is at the heart of our business: it’s what helps us to Serve our Customers Better.

Listening hard and

responding quickly wherever possible

THE MERRION CENTRE

ver the past 18 months, we’ve introduced ways to listen to our customers and to you. We’re improving our stores through our Fresh Look Listening Groups (p14), and our leaders are shopping with our customers to see how they make decisions on what to buy and why (p12). This year you asked for more of a say in how we can improve our business, and we’ve responded by creating the Your Say forums.

O

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Listening and responding

Colleague

Finding the

right team

Facebook

Almost 28,000 of you are members and use it to listen and respond to each other, share ideas and best practice, and ask questions, like Emma Louise Halpin from Burntwood in Staffordshire.

On Emma’s first day in Cake Shop, she needed the recipe for Eton Mess, which was on offer. She asked for help on the Colleague Facebook page and within minutes, Vicky Barker from our Nelson store, in Lancashire, and Graham Perkin from Guiseley store, in West Yorkshire, responded with the recipe.

If you have an idea that could help the wider business, email yoursay@morrisonsplc.co.uk and we’ll make sure it gets to the right team or forum

Your Say forums

These monthly meetings are a chance for you to listen to each other and talk about what we can do to make Morrisons a better place to work and shop.

Paige Cahill from the Engagement team explains: “You have some great ideas and we want you to discuss them at the Your Say forums and, where you can, put them into practice.”

It’s early days, but the Your Say forums have already got you listening to each other and sharing ideas and solutions, judging by your posts on our Colleague Facebook page:

We made it fun, informative and sharing ideas on how to improve our Sunday trade!”

Tracey Nicholls, Grantham

Looking forward to our next meeting and bringing all your ideas to life.”

Jennifer Anne Turner, Canvey Island

More ways

to share ideas

Next

steps No matter where you work or what you do we all have the freedom to make decisions to help Serve our Customers Better.

For example, colleagues at Seaford listened when customer Hedley Revett emailed the store saying he could never find a basket when parking in the underground car park. The store responded by stacking baskets at the entrance to the underground car park.

After his next visit Hedley emailed again saying: “Bingo, job done!

Well done and thank you.”

Every day you speak with thousands of our customers and each other. These are all chances for us to listen hard and respond quickly, wherever possible, so that we can Serve our Customers Better.

Our Online Customer Service team listened to customer Samita who was upset about the online delivery delay.

The team responded by keeping her up to date with what was happening. Samita later wrote in saying: “I spoke with Jeff who listened and made me feel calm. He updated me every few hours and the driver was on time! With these superstars in your company I won’t be shopping anywhere else.”

Turn the page to see how we’re listening and responding quickly by shopping with our customers.

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Listening and responding

Shopping with our customers Asking customers what they want from us is good, but being able to respond quickly, no matter what we do or where we are in the business, is even better. ne way we do this is through our O Accompanied Shopping Trips, when senior leaders spend time with a customer in store as they do their shopping.

So far, we’ve arranged for senior leaders to accompany 100 of our customers. During the shopping trip, they get to do what our store colleagues do and talk to customers face to face.

They ask customers about what catches their eye, why they choose the things they buy and find out what’s important to them. It really gets to the heart of the decisions our customers make, and what we find out helps to shape and improve the products and services we offer.

Seeing and hearing what our customers really think is priceless. Great service makes a big difference, and I’ve seen how important our own brand products are in giving our customers more choice – the quality and price of these really matters.”

Rebecca Singleton, Local Solutions Director

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Jen Taylor, Marketing & Customer Manager – Insight, who runs the shopping trips, says: “They can be real eye-openers.

One thing I’ve learnt is how much our customers know about the price of products they regularly buy. They can tell straight away if the price changes by just a few pence.”

Milly Harwood, a customer at our Swinnow Road store, who shopped with Laura Lewis from the Marketing team, has a young family, and told us that discounts and offers are things that she looks out for. Milly said: “You have some really good deals, which I’ll make a special trip for.

I usually tell my mum about them too.”

For Deborah Armstrong, another Swinnow Road customer, who shopped with Trading Director Andrew Pleasance, range is important. “I think it’s great that Morrisons is listening to customers like this. I’m vegetarian, so I sometimes struggle to get everything I need in one store. I also shop in the Free From section and I’ve noticed that the range is better now,” said Deborah.

Listening and responding

I realised how important low prices are to some shoppers. We’ve still got some work to do in letting people know about our lower prices and great value, and I think that’s something we can all help with, wherever we work.” below: CUSTOMER DEBORAH ARMSTRONG WITH TRADING DIRECTOR ANDREW PLEASANCE

Sanj Dosanjh, Category Director Non Food Grocery

What happens

next?

The Accompanied Shopping Trips are also giving the team food for thought, and some of the views and ideas are things they’ve heard from other customer listening groups.

It’s extremely useful information that will help us to make our business better, as Jen explains: “Many of the customers we shop with talk about similar things, such as our prices, our range and the quality of products we sell.

We pass these findings on to the right team so that they know even more about our customers. This helps them when they’re making decisions about things like new store layouts, promotions or new products. These are just some of the reasons it’s so important for us to keep listening and responding to what our customers really want from us.”

It’ll take more than one shopping trip to change people’s views about us. But you can see that they’re starting to notice the things we’re doing better, so listen to our customers and respond quickly if you can.”

SWINNOW ROAD

David Lennon, Category Director Home & Leisure august2016 13

fresh look

Our Fresh Look programme is giving many of our stores a makeover that’s offering our colleagues and customers more of what they want – and it’s helping us grow sales too.

a turn-up

looks for the

ince introducing our Fresh Look programme, we’ve listened to hundreds of our stores – and we’ve more to come.

“Before we start every refresh we hold three listening groups at each store,” says Joe Hughes – Retail Graduate. “That’s where our customers and colleagues tell us about the improvements they want to see. It’s not just about giving stores a lick of paint or re-fitting the counters, it’s also about making sure we’ve got the right products in the right places, that colleagues have the right training to do their jobs, and we’ve got extra services, like drycleaning, that customers want.”

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Shaping your store We listened to colleagues in our Darlington, County Durham store, who told us they wanted a Party Zone creating to cater for families in the area… so we responded by doing just that.

At Chester-le-Street we responded to customers and colleagues asking for a clothing range by introducing a front-of-store Nutmeg department.

A popular request from all our listening groups has been to position Food To Go more prominently in store, which is a great example to show how we’re getting the right products in the right places.

ABOVE: EBBW Vale

Fresh Look facts

211 14

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stores listened to

2,110

colleagues listened to

3,376

customers listened to

fresh look

new café at ebbw vale

Sales on

up

the

Every one of our stores is different, which means they all get a different kind of Fresh Look – one that works for them. Andy Newton, Retail Planning and Format Director, says: “Listening to our customers and colleagues is an important part of Fresh Look because it gives us the information we need to make the right kind of changes.”

It doesn’t stop there “Once we finished some of the first Fresh Look stores, we listened to what customers and colleagues thought,” says Joe. “In Byker, for example, we went back to remove bays of byker shelving, turning it into a promotional area for beers, wines and spirits, which is performing really well.

We’ll continue to listen and respond where possible.” chester-le-street

At Eccles the new look includes: • Oven fresh relocated to front-of-store next to a new expanded Food To Go offer • A refreshed café • Pancake griddle installed and lower shelving in bakery – plus an oven to cope with demand.

Changes at Chester-le-Street include:

At Ebbw Vale, we’ve introduced:

• A new front-of-store Nutmeg department

• A refreshed café

• Freshly-designed produce area with new kit

• A new Free From department on Market Street

• Refreshed colleague facilities.

• A new cutting block on the butchery counter.

Want more?

Gary Mills, Group Retail Director, says: “Fresh Look has given us an opportunity to review what we do by listening to what our customers and colleagues want, and then responding in ways that are unique to each store, making them the best they can be. We’d like to thank everyone for all their suggestions and hard work in making Fresh Look a success.”

If your store is due a Fresh Look, find out what’s planned by speaking to your Store Manager.

For more information on the listening programme, email syslistening@morrisonsplc.co.uk

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the social

We want your stories! Please send them through the internal post, or to Fresh News, using the address on p3.

Want more?

Look who popped into Chorlton! Peter Kay and his Carshare co-star, Sian Gibson, were filming the new series outstide the store.

Healthy eating can also be great fun as children at a local school found out when Hawick Community Champion Karen Oliver treated them to a healthy picnic.

For more of your pictures and stories, visit our Colleague Facebook page

Alnwick chose Jake Scott’s colourful strawberry design as winner of a school’s design-amascot competition.

Blyth hit the headlines when colleagues invited a local hero, and the 11 children he saved from a dog attack, into store for a tour, gift bag and bravery certificate.

On Armed Forces Day, Army Reservist Andy Taylor, Shirley, raised £100 for Help for Heroes by wearing his 25kg kit bag all shift.

And Army Cadets raised £247 with a bag pack at Banbury store.

Colwyn Bay donated baby food to Women’s Aid to use in the local women’s hostel.

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Above: Shirley

One loyal Diss customer said she wanted to celebrate her 99th birthday with lunch at Morrisons - just like every week.

Our colleagues surprised her with flowers, cake and decorations.

Kilmarnock store helps out many local schools, and donated 100 bubble wands for a local nursery school’s graduation.

the social

You can also email company.communications@morrisonsplc.co.uk or post on our Colleague Facebook page.

Michelle Gamble, Wellingborough, raises money for the British Legion and sold poppies. The Lord Mayor of Wellingborough gave her a certificate to say thank you.

To help keep our customers even safer, Binley raised £1,000 for a defibrillator, and our colleagues were trained by St John Ambulance.

Young carers had fun cooking healthy meals, which taught them useful skills, thanks to Kendal store.

Westbury’s bucket collection raised over £60 for 70-year-old customer Stewart Renfrew. He’s cycling 700 miles in seven days to raise money for CLIC Sargent and Down’s Syndrome Association.

Below: Sue McGrenaghan

Wood Green’s Community Champion, Julie Bartlett, donated a hamper for the local Mayor’s raffle, to raise money for All People All Places, which helps homeless people.

Left: Julie Slater

Best last days… were celebrated by: Right: Marcia Sparkes, Pinchbeck

Deborah Graham, Community Champion, Cowdenbeath, helped to choose the ‘Royal Party’ for Civic Week, a huge event that finishes with a parade.

Customer Margaret Crosby will be ‘dancing on the ceiling’ after winning two Lionel Richie concert tickets in Holyhead’s Cancer Research raffle.

Cannock donated flowers to Age UK so that local people with dementia could enjoy a flower arranging event.

Sue McGrenaghan celebrates 30 years’ service at Clifton and Julie Slater celebrates 25 years at Castle Bromwich.

Local schoolchildren visited our Tynemouth bakers to learn about bread-making and taste the results. At Harwich, visiting schoolchildren made doughnuts and pizzas.

Below: Geoff Ashby, Hinckley

Below: Shirley Spruce, Aldridge

Above: June Wilson, Aldridge Below: Carole Sullivan, Baglan

Above: Tynemouth

Above: Harwich

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Listening hard and responding quickly wherever possible

It’s what we do here every day and is at the heart of how we do business

We make

Morrisons