SWINDON’S LEISURE OPERATOR AWARDED GOLD STANDARD BY INVESTORS IN PEOPLE

GLL – the UK’s foremost, charitable leisure and cultural social enterprise - has been awarded Investors in People Gold status.

The staff-owned co-operative organisation runs six leisure facilities in Swindon under the ‘Better’ brand.

IiP is an international, best-practice standard that recognises companies that commit to good people management and development of their people.

Used in about 70 countries around the world, about 50,000 organisations have attained it.

Achieving Gold puts GLL in the top 15% of IiP accredited organisations.

GLL People Director, Lorraine Patrinos said:

“We are a friendly organisation that cares about its people.

“Gold standard means we are independently acknowledged as a good employer – one that excels in creating an organisational culture that provides a clear vision for the future, values and develops its people and creates high degrees of trust.

“To get IiP Gold Standard is a fantastic achievement and caps off an amazing 30th anniversary year for GLL’s staff-owned social enterprise.

“I want to pay tribute to all our people at all grades - whether working in leisure, libraries or children’s services - for the great work they do, day in and day out to deliver the great public services our customers rely on.”

As part of the assessment for Gold standard, all GLL staff were surveyed this autumn and 200 staff completed face to face interviews.

GLL employs 11,000 people in England, Cardiff and Belfast and operates over 350 facilities from swimming pools and children’s centres to libraries and national arenas.

During Covid, GLL protected and rewarded its workforce using the Government’s Retention Scheme to keep all staff on the books for when the business reopened.

Recently, it has made a stronger strategic focus on culture and values and built leadership and management capability.

GLL is an accredited Real Living Wage Employer and believes in harnessing all the talents of its diverse workforce in decision making – including offering places on its Worker Board.

Councillor Jim Grant, Swindon Borough Council’s Cabinet Member for Communities and Joint Working, said: “This is great news for GLL and I’m really pleased, as one of the Council’s most important partners, it has received this important recognition.

“This shows it really values its staff and a happy, motivated workforce will deliver great leisure services for people in Swindon.”