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Today’s retail industry needs to not only enhance opportunities for women but diversify entirely to meet the challenges of retail’s evolution.
Retail is a people business; from interactions on the shopfloor to negotiations in the boardroom.
intu owns many of the UK’s largest shopping centres and research from planning consultant Lichfields show them to be among the biggest employers in their regions, providing as many as one in 10 local jobs in some areas.
We are a large employer, supporting more than 135,000 jobs equating to 3% of the retail job market.
As a shopping centre landlord, the type of roles have changed significantly over the past five years as the responsibility of a landlord moved away from simply providing clean, secure shopping environments to delivering compelling experiences with an integrated digital offering to make customers smile and drive footfall and longer dwell times to help retailers flourish.
A new journey
We’re proud of our employees’ commitment to our vision and purpose – making customers smile and helping our retailers flourish.
From our apprentices to asset managers, web developers to property management professionals and customer service staff to digital marketing co-ordinators, our employees are vital to fulfilling our purpose.
Our people are talented individuals and our culture enables them to be bold, creative and genuine in their work to make shopping at intu a joyful experience for our 35 million visitors and thousands of retailers.
In return, we aim to be a great employer, promoting diversity and inclusion, treating our employees fairly and enabling them to grow professionally and personally.
“Today’s retail industry needs to not only enhance opportunities for women but diversify entirely to meet the challenges of retail’s evolution”
We’re proud of our position in the top 20% of FTSE 250 and 350 companies for the number of women at board, senior and executive management levels – with more than 30% female staff at board level and 29% at executive and director level, according to Hampton-Alexander Review FTSE Women Leaders 2018.
We recognise that this is just the beginning of a new journey, for us and many of our counterparts across the industry. Today’s retail industry needs to not only enhance opportunities for women but diversify entirely to meet the challenges of retail’s evolution.
To help us achieve more in this area intu is the exclusive property partner of Retail Week’s Be Inspired initiative, launched in 2016 as a platform to discuss gender diversity in the boardroom.
Two years on and the initiative has moved forward, aiming to proactively develop the next generation of retail leaders.
We can gain inspiration from people all around us so it’s important we share our experiences to help nurture talent for today and the future, and we’re looking forward to working with fellow retail businesses to work towards this common goal.
