Why Work for A.F. Blakemore?

Throughout its 90-year history, A.F. Blakemore & Son Ltd has always placed a great emphasis upon its staff, customers and local communities.  We do our best to care for our employees and make the company a pleasant place to work.


Career Development Opportunities

As a company we are committed to the development of all of our staff across the group and hold Investors in People accreditation for all divisions. 

Our performance management system, Growing You the Blakemore Way, clearly outlines what we expect in terms of behaviour and job role and helps us to identify individuals with the potential to develop within their current role or grow into a new one.

This career development framework is all underpinned by our excellent Learning & Development team, who offer a combination of essential skills programmes and accreditations, including health and safety training, professional qualifications and management courses.  We have also recently become an approved Institute of Leadership and Management (ILM) centre, which allows us to design management courses bespoke to A.F. Blakemore at the same time as rewarding our staff with internationally recognised formal management qualifications. 
 

Benefits

We also like to look after our staff and their families, and our benefits packages include generous holiday entitlements, contributory pensions, health care cover, life insurance, attendance and long service bonuses, discounts in various company stores, health and wellbeing activities, corporate responsibility activity and even paid sabbatical leave after 25 years’ service. 

Since 2003 A.F. Blakemore has donated more than £250,000 to our longest serving members of staff and £100,000 worth of prizes to employees with excellent attendance records. 

A.F. Blakemore staff can also benefit from the company's Retail Trust membership.  The Retail Trust is a charity that looks after the needs of people working in retail, including all employees of A.F. Blakemore. 

The Retail Trust Helpline (0808 801 0808) is a free and confidential service that offers independent advice and access to free counselling, free legal and debt advice, free hardship grants, free course funding for career development and much more.

The Retail TrustFor more information, please see the Retail Trust’s website, www.retailtrust.org.uk.


 

Community Engagement

The success of A.F. Blakemore & Son Ltd has been underpinned by a culture that is built upon positive relationships with staff, customers, trade partners and local communities.  The company encourages staff to undertake volunteering projects in the communities where they live and work, in company time.  Examples of employee volunteering include team based regeneration projects, student mentoring and participation in enterprise days for local schools. 

Between 2005 and 2010 around a quarter of A.F. Blakemore’s workforce were involved in employee volunteering projects. 

A.F. Blakemore also has its own charitable trust, called the Blakemore Foundation, which supports local good causes supported by staff and customers.