Respect & recognition

Everyone at Northern Foods should feel valued and be able to contribute to the changes being made to the business.

Working through a period of business transformation is a demanding task and we feel that we can support all our employees by working with them to recognise their achievements and develop a respectful workplace. We believe that building a culture of continuous improvement, driven by recognition of efforts, motivates individuals and is the key to the growth of the business.

Managing talent

A rigorous cross business talent and performance management process exists within Northern Foods, ensuring that we are developing and motivating the leaders of the future. The approach plays a vital role in underpinning the successful delivery of our business change programme.

Northern Stars 

We want all our employees to be involved in developing our business. To help encourage a performance culture, Northern Foods created Northern Stars, a voucher-based scheme which recognises the contributions and achivements of employees. Nominated by their colleagues and line managers, recipients of Northern Stars awards are given Supercheques which can be redeemed at most high street shops and leisure facilities.

In 2005/06 over 200 people became Northern Stars with award winners announced through a number of communications channels.

Diversity at Northern Foods

Working in a factory environment can be a very challenging, yet rewarding experience, which requires colleagues to work closely together in teams. The diversity of our workforce can present challenges that must be addressed and resolved daily. There are 22 different languages being spoken on factory floors at any one time across the business, the top three being Polish, Urdu & Portuguese. Given this workforce make up we are working alongside the Bakers Food and Allied Workers Union (BFAWU) to understand further the diversity of our factories and how we can maximise the workforce potential and make union membership more inclusive.