April is World Autism Acceptance Month - a time to recognise autistic people, their strengths, and the importance of a more inclusive society. At schuh, we believe it’s about more than acceptance. It’s about recognising potential. Last year, we began a 3 year partnership with Ambitious about Autism, with 3 clear objectives: 🤝 Creating supported employment opportunities - We’re excited to now be working closely with Ambitious about Autism to upskill our teams and support new recruits through their employability programme. Our pilot phase is underway, and we’ve already met some incredible young people (applications are now closed, but we’ll be recruiting again in early 2027). 🛍️ Building a more inclusive shopping experience - environmental assessments across selected stores have given us valuable insights, which we’re now working to implement. Customers can access Social Stories via our store finder to better understand what to expect when visiting one of our stores too. 💚 Increasing understanding of autism - Earlier this year, nearly 40 team members completed specialist training with the Employ Autism team, helping us better support all of our colleagues through practical, everyday adjustments. We’ve also received valuable feedback on improving our recruitment process. We know there’s more work ahead, so we’re just getting started…
"Breast Cancer Now’s “WEAR IT PINK” day, one of the biggest fundraising events in the UK. Over 55,000 people are diagnosed with breast cancer every year in the UK. Breast Cancer Now are on a mission to ensure everyone diagnosed with breast cancer lives and is supported to live well by 2050." Today we encourage our teams to wear pink, to raise awareness and help fund life-changing breast cancer research and support.
To support World Mental Health Day, we encouraged schuh team members to come together to talk about mental health and show each other that mental health matters. Talking about our mental health can help us cope better with life’s ups and downs. WORLD MENTAL HEALTH DAY THEME FOR 2024: WORKPLACE MENTAL HEALTH The 2024 theme highlights the importance of addressing mental health and wellbeing in the workplace, for the benefit of people, the company and communities. For WMHD 2024, we are gifted each member of the schuh family a Wellness Hour, one hour to do something that brings them happiness and contributes to their overall positive mental wellbeing.
Since we launched our Employee Generate Content incentive, SHOW US YOUR SCHUH'S, at the end of August, we have been encouraging our team members to create their own content to be used on our website. The engagement and content from our teams so far has been amazing! All content successfully uploaded to our gallery is entered into a draw, with a new winner selected each month. Each winner will win a free pair of shoes!
In partnership with Perkbox, to celebrate Happiness at Work Week, we set daily challenges for our teams to get involved in. We challenged team members to recognise co-workers each day, in line with the daily theme, to bring happiness to the workplace! For each recognition shared during Happiness at Work Week, both sender and the receiver were entered into a draw to win a £100 voucher from Perkbox.
The Great British Beach Clean is a week-long citizen science event, hosted by the Marine Conservation Society, where hundreds of beach cleans take place up and down the UK. This year, volunteers from Head Office will be attending a Beach Clean event, in Brighton, to help stop harmful litter from reaching the ocean and collect vital data that can be used to bring about positive change for our seas.
We are excited to share that schuh has been awarded highly commended in the Marie Claire Sustainability Awards 2024! It's great to be recognised for our commitment to sustainability within the footwear industry. Well done schuh!
From Friday 30th August, customers who require only one shoe due to a limb difference or disability will be able to purchase a single shoe in-store. The single shoe will be taken from a new pair, and a 50% discount will be applied. For customers unable to get to a schuh store, the initiative is also available via schuh’s customer experience team. Neil Partington, Chief Retail Officer said: ‘Creating an inclusive shopping experience is a key part of our business strategy. I am delighted to be able to roll out single-shoe purchases to all schuh stores. We have been doing it via our Customer Experience team for some time, but now, even more people will have access to our hottest brands and products through this inclusive product offering.’ The initiative is part of our ongoing commitment to disability equality. Disability equality is a crucial brand purpose pillar which schuh actively seeks to understand better, spotlight and support for its disabled customers, employees and in the wider community. Our disability equality employee group and the wider business work with key partners and iconsultants and seek regular feedback from its customers and workforce to improve the shopping experience for disabled people.
Feelgood Friday is a weekly communication on our internal platform to welcome, get to know, celebrate and recognise our team members. This Friday, we're changing things up with an exciting relaunch! Our weekly communications will be released in a whole new format, to keep our team members informed, engaged and encourage involvement. And we will continue to welcome, get to know, celebrate and recognise our team members on a monthly basis. Episode 1 will showcase on "A Day in the Life" with our very own Communications & Engagement team.
Each quarter we review the recognitions from our Celebration Hub on Perkbox, and the Leadership Team choose a winner for each value: Authentic, Brave, Collaborative, Inclusive, Passionate and Unique. The winner for each value is rewarded with points to spend on Perkbox as a thank you for displaying the schuh values in their day to day roles.
