Supporting Our Colleagues

OUR GOAL IS SIMPLE, TO BECOME THE EMPLOYER OF CHOICE IN OUR SECTOR

We know our business success is down to the dedication of the more than 20,000 employees across the UK who work in our stores, warehouses and offices. Our streamlined discounter model means every individual’s contribution is vital, and we value the enthusiasm that our colleagues bring to work, day in, day out.

First supermarket to adopt the living wage

In 2015, we became the first supermarket to adopt the living wage rate recommended by the Living Wage Foundation. This led to a 20% increase in job applications at Lidl.

We followed this up by becoming the first British supermarket to announce that we would adopt a higher living wage in 2016 and 2017, benefiting 5,500 employees who represent one quarter of our workforce.

Training and Development

We want to become the most attractive employer in the retail industry. We will do this by continuing to invest in attracting the best talent, developing and training all our employees as well as supporting their progression within the business.

Our wide range of training and development opportunities reflects our diverse workforce. Whether it’s through emerging talent opportunities for graduates and undergraduate placements, our Store Manager development programmes or our international job rotations, we offer numerous possibilities to help employees develop their career with us.

Equal opportunities

As an international chain and equal opportunities employer, we value the skills and ideas of employees from diverse cultural and ethnic backgrounds. Our policy is to provide a working environment in which all our employees can realise their potential free from harassment and discrimination.

We seek to ensure that no one receives less favourable treatment because of gender, gender reassignment, pregnancy, marital/civil status, sexual orientation, race, colour, nationality, ethnic origin, age, religious beliefs or disability. All employees, prospective employees, suppliers and visitors are to be treated with respect, too.

Please review our Gender Pay Gap page for further information.

Empowering our colleagues to act responsibly and sustainability

To empower our employees on the topic of sustainability, training is provided to help build understanding on the key topics and issues relating to their roles. Through this training we empower employees to make the right decisions and awareness raising we empower colleagues to make the right decisions as part of their day to day responsibilities. We believe that through this collective approach to responsible and sustainable decision making we can bring about significant change.

Across the company we are committed to ensuring that by the end of 2022, all colleagues are trained in the sustainability topics relevant to their roles, empowering them to make decisions that support wider business sustainability objectives. This is an objective that we are committed to maintaining once the 2022 deadline has been achieved.

Find out more about our sustainability objectives here

Buying in a responsible and sustainable way

Our commitment to ensuring all employees are trained in sustainability topics is particularly important within our buying department, where we source products from around the world every single day. Through responsible and sustainable purchasing practices we are able to directly support our product supply chains through mitigating adverse impacts and enhancing positive impacts.

To ensure we are implementing our commitment, all buyers are given bespoke training on the key topics and issues relating to their product categories, as well as the relevant tools needed to deliver the commitments. This includes:

Induction into responsible sourcing when joining the buying department
A Responsible Sourcing Handbook that covers material social and environmental issues and relevance for their categories
Training on specific topics such as human rights issues, plastic and packaging and raw material goals ahead of annual range reviews
Mandatory training sessions conducted by in-house specialists on arising topics
The inclusion of requirements within tender documents and specifications

Find out more via the below links:

Our Policies

Supplier Code of Conduct

Sustainability