Social

Local people are at the heart of everything and we are committed to helping wherever we can – from giving children a better start in life, right through to helping our employees adapt their working schedules as they approach retirement.

Adapting the workplace

It is very important to offer our employees control over their future. The vast majority of our staff now have a “skills matrix” – a framework that maps each individual’s skills and experience. This allows them to work with the business to find out how best to progress, either in their current job, or by transferring to a role or another department. This gives employees greater opportunities, with the added benefit of improving the retention rate for staff.

Like all businesses, the Covid pandemic forced us to look closely at how we work. When certain teams worked from home during the lockdowns, it became clear that a number of our office-based roles could be carried out extremely effectively from home. In 2021, we set out a formal policy for how homeworking fits into our working life at Princess. There has been a great response, with 147 members of staff currently on a
blended working option.

Since the pandemic, the UK workforce has also seen a
sharp increase in people taking early retirement. We have
successfully introduced new flexible retirement options for our
staff, which means individual employees can reduce working
hours to suit their lifestyle. There is also the chance to spend
more time mentoring new recruits, so they get to share the
benefit of their years of experience.

WORKING TO ERADICATE CHILD POVERTY IN PLYMOUTH

Kerry Bidwell, Development Manager at PCIP Plymouth Children in Poverty

It is impossible to overstate the importance of tackling child poverty in the city. Plymouth Children in Poverty (PCiP) is focused on a coordinated approach to eradicating the problem at its roots. The organisation was born out of a need for collaboration between the public sector, private sector and charitable organisations. The PCiP oversees a whole range of programmes that help underprivileged children increase vital life skills from reading and writing, to cooking and looking after their dental health. Princess Yachts is proud to be supporting the PCiP in this vital battle to rid child poverty from our city.

The PCiP has a lot of work to do – there are currently 11,000 children living in poverty in Plymouth
A child’s likely life outcomes vary greatly depending on where in Plymouth they are born
Some wards experience child poverty levels in excess of 35%.
Princess Yachts has been a headline sponsor for three years
A member of our staff sits on the working group helping the PCiP increase its scope and the number of children it reaches

“The powerful, long-term sponsorship offered by Princess Yachts has enabled the Plymouth Children in Poverty initiative to expand at pace and undertake a whole range of projects to reach thousands of the most vulnerable children.

“The partnership was further strengthened as we welcomed Tom Lea to the PCiP Working Group, which is creating opportunities for the team at Princess Yachts to engage not only with funding, but with something equally precious: their time. We look forward to working with the Princess Yachts staff on many more city-wide projects, building on the successful employee book drive. This project will place books in the hands of hundreds of children who experience book poverty. This partnership will create positive outcomes, change lives and help break the generational poverty cycle.” - Kerry Bidwell, Development Manager at PCiP Plymouth

CARPENTRY TRAINING WITH
CITY COLLEGE PLYMOUTH

Princess Yachts is working with City College Plymouth (CCP) to help address the skills gap across the city. The curriculum at the college is informed by demand and using links with industry, along with local market-intelligence tools, CCP discovered that Plymouth has a shortage of carpenters, among many other highly skilled trades. Working closely with Princess Yachts to understand the need and qualifications required, the college developed a new 10-week, Level 1 wood occupations course to help support growth by addressing demand from the bottom up.

The first course began in April 2022, with an initial cohort of five budding carpenters. The next course is planned for a September start and we expect numbers to grow as inquiries are building, with new courses running every 10 weeks. The course has been designed to recreate real-life working environments and all successful students have the promise of an interview
with Princess Yachts, with the potential for employment and further training with a long-term and highly valued career in the boat-building industry.

The relationship between Princess Yachts and City College Plymouth
continues to grow, with the two organisations attending various
careers events together. They are working together to see what other
short courses can be provided to help upskill current and future
employees of Princess Yachts.

MCS Partnership

In 2015, Princess Yachts became the first yacht company in history to partner with the Marine Conservation Society (MCS), supporting work on habitat protection, restoration and enhancement in the Plymouth Sound area. Princess raises money for essential conservation work and drives awareness on the importance of protecting the oceans. Acting as the custodians of Eddystone Reef, and establishing eco-moorings to protect precious seagrass beds, the company’s relationship with the MCS is a long-term one.

PLYMFISH

Starting in 2022, the company is funding a three-year project called Plymfish, which the Marine Conservation Society will be undertaking in coordination with Plymouth University.

Working in the Plymouth Sound area, the Plymfish project will use Baited Remote Underwater Video to assess fish and invertebrate populations inside and outside seagrass beds. MCS will extend the surveys to many habitats inside and outside the Plymouth Sound Marine Protected Area. They will analyse species number and diversity allowing a quantitative comparison of animals between different habitats. The Plymfish project will give MCS stronger indications of how species are likely to use such habitats, for how long, and at what densities. It will therefore lead MCS to understand the important multi-species dimensions these more three-dimensional habitats have for enhancing both commercial and non-commercial species.

MCS Partnership

The work Princess is funding in the Plymouth Sound and surrounding area is vitally important to furthering the understanding of these precious ecosystems and the services they provide, so that more like this can be replicated, not just in the UK, but around the world.

Previously, Princess Yachts has supported the Marine Conservation Society’s work to monitor the protection and recovery of the Eddystone Reef Marine Protected Area as well monitor the re-establishment of seagrass in Cawsands Bay through the implementation of Advanced Mooring Systems. These projects have contributed to the vital evidence needed to demonstrate the importance of these ecosystems and the services they provide.

Mentoring

At Princess Yachts we are extremely proud of our plan to attract and retain staff. This spans from our extensive apprenticeship programmes – everything from engineering and carpentry to HR and business administration – right through to our options for flexible retirement. Another very important element is the mentorship programme, which helps guide and support staff during the initial stages of their employment.

We aim for work to be as varied and enjoyable as possible at Princess Yachts. This is very important for maintaining staff satisfaction, but it also means there is a lot to learn when employees are new to the company. The mentorship programme aims to take away any uncertainty by giving new recruits time to spend learning from a more experienced member of staff. Mentors are given at least 50% of their time off the tools so they can dedicate proper attention to the person they are mentoring.

Feedback for the scheme has been hugely positive, with new recruits finding the help invaluable as they are supported in every aspect of work as they
find their feet. We already have 50 fully trained mentors, with the aim
of increasing this number as we expand the scheme across the company.

Flexible Retirement Scheme

“ I have found that since being offered part- time work back in September 2021 it has helped me adjust to life outside of work and my run down to early retirement.

Since going part time I have been made a mentor and I am enjoying passing on my knowledge to the younger generation that the company has seen coming through in these recent months.

Last but not least its been very helpful for my wife to adjust to me being at home more with her!”

Mike Baker
Fit Out, South Yard