IT’S GOLD

HAPPY BIRTHDAY STEETON

30 YEARS

30 years on and still going strong

How have we done?

Book your place on page 8

Healthy Heart first for Bradford

Issue 10 Summer 2010

GLOBAL CHALLENGE

UPDATE

THE BIG EVENT

News, views & reviews - all the latest from Damart www.damart.co.uk

Strong growth reflects the fact that our customers love what we do and we’ve

been making some great improvements in the way that we handle customer contacts within the Contact Centre. Here are some examples of what is driving improvements:-

• The Mail & Banking team has reduced processing backlogs for customer orders and returns, giving a better service to the customer. This has resulted in gains elsewhere. For example we have had fewer phone calls from customers asking “have you had my return yet?”

• The “Rapid” project brought all customer call handling into Bingley in June last year and as a result the quality of phone conversations that our customers experience has improved.

• We have all experienced “call centre hell” and know that keeping customers waiting to be transferred to an agent is not good. We have increased the number of telephone agents to reduce the average wait time, which is currently around 15 seconds. As a result customer frustrations and hang ups are very low.

• An immediate benefit of answering the phone quickly and professionally has been the stunning increase in “telesales” which doubled last year adding an additional £1m to sales. This also reflects the good teamwork between the Contact Centre and the Product Division which ensures the right product offer is made to the customer.

• And of course we can’t continue to deliver these fabulous business results without you. It’s a good job we’re all so healthy and energetic. In fact we are the gold standard in ‘Healthy Heart’. Turn to page 8 for some examples of where you have gone the extra mile.

Looking forward, we are committed to continually improving customer service levels, see page 7 for an article about the OPRA project. OPRA is the replacement of our current mail order processing system. The new system will deliver significant benefits for the customer and the business.

2009 - 2010That was the year that was!

Damart Team Spirit

Summer 2010

Editors:

Rachel Barker

Cicada Communications

Helen Laura Taylor

Geraldine Vernon

Mark Scurr

Contributors:

Stuart Creeley

Neil Hirst

Steve Bartle

Portia Williamson

Paul Anderson

Angi Graham

Sarah Brown

Jo Wood

Steven Vickers

Phil Shaw

Jeanette Askin

Paul Milligan

MCG

If you have a story for Team Spirit, email your ideas to hltaylor@damart.com

The EditorialTeam

2 DAMART TEAMSPIRIT

In retail you are only as good as your last result. Now that the finance team has finalised the accounts for the year to June 2010, I can confirm that the past year has been an absolutely fabulous success with sales growth of 20% and our operating profit up by 300%. We should all feel really proud.

Sales growth of 20% and our operating profit up by 300%.

We should all feel really proud.

WELCOME

Stuart Creeley

Finance and Customer Services Director

Congratulations to everyone

for their involvement in our

Healthy Heart initiative,

helping us to become the

first company in Bradford to

achieve Gold!

We’ve been awarded the Gold

mark in record time, after only

registering to take part in

September 2009.

Over the last 12 months

the Healthy Heart Team

introduced a range of ideas

which many of you have been

involved in, from healthy

eating options and recipe

suggestions in the canteen

to training sessions with the

Bradford Bulls, line dancing

lessons and lunchtime

Pilates classes.

Let’s keep up the good work!

DAMART WINS GOLD

Following the launch in May, staff from Bingley and Steeton completed the virtual walk around the world, recording their individual step count on a daily basis. Find out more at www.gettheworldmoving.com™

A month into the challenge the GCC Team at

Damart organised a series of initiatives and

spot prizes. So who was leading the way out of

the 35 teams and 245 participants that were

taking part? The ‘Big Footed Challengers’ from Steeton

led the way, reporting an average daily step of 20,331 and

Anne Taylor (also from the Big Footed Challengers’) with

an impressive 31,386 daily step average. The GCC Team

laid down the gauntlet to see ‘Who would become the

most improved team and participant. ‘Well Heeled’ from

Bingley and ‘Justine Murgatroyd’ (Desert Rats) all achieved

first place!

All 245 participants stepped up the pace to see ‘Who

could walk the most steps in one day’! Congratulations to

Darryl Gildroy (Team Weeble), who walked an impressive

81, 831 steps on day 38 of the challenge. All the winning

teams were awarded foot-care goody bags and the

individual winners received an iPod Shuffle.

Look out for more winners and the final step report from

the GCC that will be announced at this year’s Big Event.

Thank you and Congratulations to everyone who took

part in the challenge!

GLOBAL CORPORATE CHALLENGE UPDATE

3 DAMART TEAMSPIRIT

245 of you pledged to walk more than 10,000 steps a day as part of the Global Corporate Challenge.

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Bradford Bulls & Stuart Creeley, Line Dancing

The Big Footed Challengers were ranked in the top 5% of the GCC Global leader board from an amazing 13,892 teams!

During week 13 of the challenge, Damart’s daily average step count was recorded at 13,522! Which indicated that participants were leading a ‘Extremely Active Lifestyle’

80% of the 245 participants taking part had achieved 10,000 or more daily steps!

The Facts

Front row names left to right: Trevor Allan, Amanda Loftus, Denise Armstrong (HR UK), Helen L Taylor, Geraldine Vernon, John Bottomley, Andy Hill. The launch was also attended by GCC Team Captains and Management.

4 DAMART TEAMSPIRIT

star feature

Soul singer Beverley Knight is the new face of the 2010 Breast Cancer Campaign Pink Vest.

T his is the eighth year that Damart has supported the charity, raising over £100k to date. Beverley modelled this

year’s hot-pink cami at a photo shoot held in London. Attended by John Bottomley (Marketing Director) and his glamorous assistant for the day, Rachel Cuckson (Design Manager from the Product Division). John charmed the gorgeous soul diva while Rachel was in charge of the styling and directing the photographer with the help of Beverly’s personal makeup assistant .

Here’s some behind the scenes photos of how the team created Beverley’s look.

Look out for the launch of the pink vest campaign in October 2010.

BEHIND THE SCENES AS BEVERLEY ‘WEARS IT PINK’

With summer drawing to an end we can safely say that our SS10 Collection has proved extremely popular.

The biggest fashion buy of the season was the colour block maxi dress, a real hit amongst our customers becoming a must have item.

And there’s more to come as we launch the AW10 collection which is all about the key catwalk trends. We predict that the long-line cardigans and great range of winter coats will be just as popular.

Media Coverage

Imaginations and creativity ran wild during the Contact Centre initiative, creating some real vibrancy in the department. The teams went to extraordinary

lengths to decorate their workspaces after randomly selecting a competing world cup country from a draw. When the teams country was playing the team was then allowed to dress down (prior to the revised casual dress policy).

The judges Jeanette Askin and Neil Hirst were so impressed they decided on three winners, each team winning a meal at Pizza Hut. Congratulations to Holland (Green team), Brazil (Pink Team) and Mexico (Credit Team).

The decorations remained throughout the entire tournament and generated a real buzz.

Also as part of the world cup initiative the Contact Centre also ran the ‘Special Offer Conversion Cup!’ Teams were assigned groups. They then played fixtures against each other based on their special offer sales that day.

As the tournament progressed, the two surviving teams were the Lavender team and the Cream team. The Lavender team were the winners and were presented with a trophy and £150 in vouchers.

Neil Hirst said “The world cup initiative has been a great success, everyone in the contact centre made an amazing effort to decorate their team areas!

World cup spirit and colour exploded across the contact centre during the World cup, bring the team and competitive spirit of world cup into Damart.

Damart currently donates to many good causes, including Breast Cancer and Heart Research UK. As part of our ongoing commitment to local good causes, we have decided to launch a Damart Sponsorship Fund, which will be used to support local charities or good causes close to your heart.

Damart will set aside an amount of money each year to support the wide-variety of fund raising activities which we know you are involved in. You will be able to apply for money to be used towards local charitable events/ initiatives. Each request accepted will then be followed up by an article in Team Spirit, to help raise even more awareness for your chosen charity.

Further details about this scheme will be on Damart-TV, Damart-Net and notice boards around the business. For further information contact Jo Wood on ext 6372. Application forms will also be available on DamartNet.

Damart launches charity fund for staff

WORLD CUP

5 DAMART TEAMSPIRIT

main story

Steeton celebrated its 30th birthday with a slice of celebratory birthday cake.

The Internal Comms team pulled out all the stops, decorating the canteen with posters featuring music, food, TV and film from 1980 to reflect when Steeton was born. Six of our longest serving employees also celebrated milestones with Patricia Ratcliffe marking 35 years at Damart. Rodney Sykes, Glenis Early, Richard Howes, Ian Park and John Kettlewell have all been celebrating three decades of service. Here’s what they had to say about their time at Damart:

Originally a warehouse to store Damart’s stock and dispatch customer orders, the site recently expanded to also encompass the company’s mail and print centre; a major operation mailing out over 45 million catalogues and direct mail items each year to customers across the UK.

Managing Director, Andy Hill said: “It’s a great achievement to be celebrating such a milestone birthday for our Steeton site and we’re extremely proud to have a number of employees who have been here from day one.”

“The site has come on a long way since it first opened, undergoing

major refurbishments over the last decade. This long term investment in the Steeton site has shown our commitment to the business and the community which was made possible by the local Authority’s decision to grant planning permission to extend our site. We are delighted to say that this has been Damart’s most successful year to date, in which Steeton has played an integral part. Here’s to another 30 years of success!”

“When Richard and myself started here in May 1980 the

site was just a shell. There were no drinking and toilet facilities for the first month, so we had to bring our own pop and get

drinking water off the builders”

Ian Park (Shultz)& Richard Howes

“The recruitment for staff took place in the

Grouse Pub in Silsden as the warehouse was still

nearing completion”

Pat Ratcliffe

“I’ve seen people come and go over the years but they always seem to come back to Damart. It’s a good community and the people

are good to work with”

John Kettlewell

“Damart has grown over the years – the investment and the opening of E-block”

Glenis Early

Celebrations galore at Damart

L to r Glenis Early, Andy Hill, George Cook, John Kettlewell, Linda Montgomery, John Bottomley, Ian Park, Richard Howes, Lynn Cordall, Pat Ratcliffe, George Vasili

Andy Cuts the cake with Steeton employees

6 DAMART TEAMSPIRIT

Lorna used the leggings to great effect, using silk screen printing to produce bold motifs and patterns onto the fabric, all done by hand. Lorna from Edinburgh College of Art said: “The leggings have added a great finishing touch to my tribal collection and many people

asked where I had got them from. Thanks to Damart’s support I hope to gain a high mark in the show which will ultimately help me achieve my dream of becoming a successful fashion designer.”

STUDENT SHOWS OFF OUR DESIGNS

In July this year we held our eighth internal Fashion Show.

We’ve come a long way since the

first show in SS07, and now the seasonal event is the hottest ticket in town. This year our models showed off the latest AW10 collections, supported behind the scenes by the Buying department assistants. The show was Introduced by Portia Williamson and Paul Anderson.

Angi Graham, made sure the event ran smoothly, arranging everything from the catwalk and

sound system, to sweets and fans for the models! (Yes! models eat sweets!)

The 80’s themed music was once again coordinated by Darryl Gildroy (I.S) . For those of you who didn’t get to see the AW10 show, we’ll be presenting a version (including glitzy Christmas party styles) at this year’s Big Event.

Fashion ForwardOPRA is coming soon…. What, why, how & when

NEWS

7 DAMART TEAMSPIRIT

Fashion and textiles student Lorna Reid has incorporated Damart’s thermal leggings in to her final University fashion show.

What

OPRA will replace our current system Softa and a 30 year old mainframe with a new order processing system using modern technology supporting the business in its future growth.

Why

OPRA will provide a flexible platform for future enhancements enabling us to offer a broader range of services to our customers.

How and when

The OPRA project team consists of a cross functional team of I.S. developers, Business Analysts and contact centre personal who are looking at the system build in a ‘phased’ approach. The new order processing system is under development throughout AW10 and will be rolled out to the business in early SS11, to all the areas that currently use Softa.

The new system will not only mean a new modern look and feel, with new screen layouts, it will also link into all other business systems, including Buying, Marketing and Financial Systems, in the same way Softa does.

A rigorous ‘design’, ‘testing’ and ‘implementation’ period is planned into the schedule for AW10, with orders and customer transactions gradually being phased onto the new system.

The in-house training team will be providing extensive training to everybody who currently uses Softa and will use the new system starting in SS11.

This is an exciting project for the business. Although the system will be designed to initially work as Softa does now, OPRA will have the capacity to deliver huge benefits in terms of new services to our customer, for example: delivery to alternative address.

Look out for more information on OPRA…….. coming soon.

SUCCESS FOR DAMART LEADERS

From l to r:

Peter Jackson (BTAL), Bev Longley, Ruth Emmott,

Leanne Mawson, Maureen Shutt, Edgar Stolers,

Stephen Carter & Ken MacKenzie (BTAL)

Congratulations to Debbie Farren(from Inspection, Steeton) whose daughter gave birth to a little bundle of joy named Loyd born on 17th May weighing 6lb 7oz.

Congratulations to proud grandmother Chrissie Lamb. Phoebe Olivia was born on 28th May weighing, 6lbs and 5oz. Phoebe is Chrissie’s first grandchild. She said: “I’m over the moon - she’s gorgeous!”

NOTICEBOARD

8 DAMART TEAMSPIRIT

The STAR’s awards for April, May and June 2010 have now been judged. Overall we had a total of 20 nominees with some very close scores.

The winners are:

Nicola French, Contact Centre Team Leader Nicola won for participating in the brand ambassadors meeting.

David Brown Contact Centre Agent David won for his involvement mentoring new starters

Angela Wright Mail and Banking Administrator Angela won for going above and beyond her duties, manually processing payments when the systems were down.

Each will receive £250 of vouchers of their choice

The Big Event 2010 is nearly here! We’ve got plenty to celebrate following our record breaking year and we hope you can join us

Friday 1 October 2010, from 4.00pm, at the Abundant Life Conference Centre in Bradford

Baby News...

Congratulations to Bev Longley, Stephen Carter, Leanne Mawson, Ruth Emmott, Maureen Shutt and

Edgar Stolers who successfully completed their Level 2 qualifications in Team Leading with BTAL Training and Development courses (Bradford & Keighley based covering West Yorkshire).

HR Training Manager Helen Taylor said: “With over 35 years of experience BTAL was chosen as a perfect fit for Damart due to the knowledge, capability and expertise which we felt meet the learning needs of our organisation.”

All the attendees from the course were invited to take part in a presentation ‘What Achieving the NVQ has meant to them’, to recognise their achievements and to share their success with the business. Also present and there to support the training; Geraldine Vernon (HR) Steve

Bartle, Val Marshall (Contact Centre), Rob Moore (Finance), Jamie George and George Cook (Steeton).

The presentations were fantastic and, the managers were amazed by the benefits gained both for the business and the attendees personally. Well done.

STARS

The fourth annual event will be hosted by a famous face who is guaranteed to make you smile

- be there to meet them yourself!

Once again we’ll be applauding all your successes with the annual Mission Vision Values (MVV) Awards, which will recognise both individuals and teams. Team Spirit, Innovation and Passion for Customers are just some of the categories this year, and the nominees will be revealed soon - watch out for details in your departments to see if you are one of them.

The winners will not only receive a unique award, but some amazing

prizes which won’t disappoint.

On the evening you can also look forward to:

•free return transport

•free food and drink

• fashion show featuringDamart employees

•disco

•spot prizes

So don’t miss out and book the date in your diary. If you haven’t booked your place, it’s not too late. Contact Joanne Phipps or Paula Drake on ext 6152 or your line manager.

We look forward to seeing you there!

Baby Phoebe