How Charles Tyrwhitt’s culture of continuous recognition has seen employees spend over £100,000 in Rewards in just one year

What they needed

As a rapidly growing business with a global presence, Charles Tyrwhitt has a disparate workforce, with offices in the UK and US, a UK-based Contact Centre, a Distribution Centre and stores across the US, UK and France. With the vast majority of its team made up of frontline staff, often working very varied shifts, employee engagement was a challenge for the retailer who wanted to make Charles Tyrwhitt a destination brand for top talent in the retail sector.

Faced with the retail industry challenge of having a heavily part-time workforce, who are often customer facing all day, and a workforce demographic which ranges in age from 18 to 70, Charles Tyrwhitt has had to be creative and innovative to make its recognition and communication strategy work. The HR team, as such, knew they had to develop an inventive and cost-effective way to show staff that they are appreciated and valued, in a way that matters to them.

It was essential for the HR team to put in place initiatives that could all be accessed through a centralised portal, ensuring ease of access and use for their people.

How we helped

With the goal of moving the needle on employee engagement, the HR team at Charles Tyrwhitt worked with Reward Gateway to create The Link, their one-stop-shop for employee discounts, wellbeing resources and communications, a platform designed with ease of use and accessibility in mind.

Alongside these benefits and tools, the team also created a unique Reward & Recognition programme that would appeal to the entire workforce, regardless of location, age or job. The organisation reinvigorated its brand values as “BEliefs,” referred to internally as the “3BEs”, with a set of BEhaviours listed underneath each of the BEs on the platform (BE the Boss, BE the Customer & BE the Best).

Named “The Celebration Station”, the company’s Reward & Recognition programme hooked into the company’s existing communications tools, all a part of the Reward Gateway offerings. The Celebration Station hosts a dozen of branded eCards that correspond to the 3BEs, and awards for going above and beyond such as the “Customer Star of the Month” or the “Store of the Month.”

Alongside these personalised eCards from leadership, the business launched its “Making it Easy” awards, which are given to retail employees when they reach a certain level of transaction (a £1k, £2k or £3k sale), can be spent on The Link, and are visible for all employees to see, allowing people to comment on their colleagues’ success.

What they achieved

Since launching The Link and the “3BEs”, Charles Tyrwhitt has woven their employee benefits into the fabric of the business, from recruitment through to appraisals and talent review. The refresh, coupled with the innovative recognition programmes through Reward Gateway, has been a success, with employee engagement rising every year since, having previously been stagnant for some time.

When it comes to recognition, so far, employees have sent over 6,500 eCards, with £100,000 redeemed in Rewards over the last 12 months. Employee discounts have also helped Charles Tyrwhitt’s employees to save on everything from weekly groceries to Christmas presents and summer holidays, spending over £350,000 through the platform and saving £21,000 in just one year.

With 82% of The Link users remaining active on the platform, the HR team are able to reach a huge audience through their communications and further highlight the wellbeing initiatives available to their people.

As a result of The Link’s success, alongside its other efforts, Charles Tyrwhitt was recognised by Best Companies as one of the UK’s Best 100 Large Companies to Work For in 2023 and was given a coveted two-star status, signalling outstanding levels of employee engagement.