Name: Helen Webb
Job title: Retail HR director
Company name: Sainsbury’s
HQ location: Holborn, London
Number of employees: 150,000


What's it like to work for your company? Sainsbury's is an exceptionally welcoming place to join and we pride ourselves on making people feel part of the team. The loyalty and camaraderie mean colleagues stay with us longer than they first anticipate due in the people they work with and the wide range of opportunities.

Why is it a good employer? We listen to our colleagues and they are actively encouraged to suggest ways to improve the way the business is run. Our internal suggestion scheme Tell Justin has had more than 20,000 ideas from colleagues and every single one is read. We also encourage colleagues to play a role in communities through fundraising or volunteer activities.

What's the best thing about working there? Our colleagues tell us that the lifelong friendships they make at work help them enjoy their job. Career opportunities are plentiful and many of our senior leaders are home-grown talent who began as a trainee manager or Saturday worker.

Does the company offer any unusual benefits? Colleague discount increases for colleagues at key trading times throughout the year. There is also a bonus scheme that has paid out more than £150m to colleagues over the past three years alone.

How does the company differ from its rivals? Everything Sainsbury's does is driven by our five values: best for food and health, sourcing with integrity, respect for the environment, a great place to work, and making a positive difference to the communities.

What's the training like? We have a learning and development framework that all colleagues and managers go through to gain the skills and knowledge required. All new starters complete an induction that gives them the generic skills for any role, then they go on to specific training for their role.

Once this is completed they build on their skills through additional customer service, department, process and product knowledge development. If colleagues have the desire and potential to progress they will complete a development programme to go to the next level and this also applies to all our management roles. We are very proud of the way we develop our internal talent and a great example would be our Hothouse programme that develops our deputy managers into store managers.

Are you looking for any people right now? Because we are such a large organisation we generally have about 500 vacancies live at any one time. We have some ambitious growth plans over the next two years and we need a pipeline of great talent to help us meet these.

How does one go about applying for a job? Online at www.sainsburys.co.uk.