From the Sector

Best Companies Ltd is a leader in their field and work with some of the world’s best-known organisations - measuring, improving and recognising great workplace engagement.

The Outstanding rating is a direct result of the bHeard colleague engagement survey, completed by 739 paid SATCoL staff and 1,174 SATCoL volunteers. The survey measured how colleagues rate SATCoL on eight factors: Leadership, My Company, Wellbeing, Fair Deal, My Manager, My Team, Personal Growth and Giving Something Back.

The paid colleagues survey results reveal that 88% of staff would recommend SATCoL as an employer to friends, 88% believe SATCoL has a clear focus and direction that they understand, and 97% understand and use SATCoL’s values (of Compassion, Accountability, Respect and Equality) within their core roles.

This is the first time SATCoL has engaged with an external provider of colleague engagement surveys, having run the process in-house previously with some success. One of the key aims for partnering with an external supplier was to increase levels of engagement. To this end Best Companies developed a volunteer survey for SATCoL which saw volunteer response rates more than double compared to previous in-house survey results.

The volunteers survey results reveal that 94% feel proud to work for SATCoL, 96% say their team are fun to work with, 93% believe SATCoL is a caring organisation interested in volunteer wellbeing, and 92% state that their volunteering role is good for their personal growth.

Commenting on the accreditation, Trevor Caffull, SATCoL’s Manager Director, said:
“I am extremely grateful to all our staff and volunteer colleagues who contribute to making SATCoL a caring workplace and an Outstanding Employer. This independent recognition shows that SATCoL’s investment in its people – including learning and development, wellbeing and improving workplace environments – as well as the investments made that set us apart as a leader in the charity retail and reuse and recycling sectors, are improvements that our colleagues have influenced, embraced and welcomed.”
Trevor continued:

“We are delighted with SATCoL’s 2 Star Outstanding Employer Accreditation, however we have lots of opportunity to reach the ultimate goal of ‘3 Star World-Class Employer’ and that will be our goal in the coming months and years.”

Salvation Army Trading Company Ltd (SATCoL) is the trading arm (and a wholly owned subsidiary) of The Salvation Army in the UK and Republic of Ireland. SATCoL actively encourages the reuse and recycling of donated clothing and other household items through over 250 charity stores, and a nationwide network of around 9,000 clothing banks.

Each year, SATCoL diverts millions of items to good causes and reuses and recycles 67,000 tonnes of textiles. Through the reuse and recycling of textiles and other items collected, SATCoL prevents over 453,000 tonnes of greenhouse gases from entering the atmosphere annually.

With the support of the British public, SATCoL has donated millions of pounds to The Salvation Army to help its work with vulnerable people in the UK (over £100 million has been donated in the last ten years). Salvation Army Trading Company Ltd is a registered company (2605817).

Salvation Army charity shops have won two major awards from the Charity Retail Association for Outstanding Charity Retailer of the Year, and Environmental and Sustainability at the CRA Annual Conference held at the Harrogate Convention Centre on 26th June 2024.

This is the second time the charity has won the Outstanding Charity Retailer of the Year Award in the past four years - winning it outright in 2022 and 2024, and also being shortlisted in 2021 and 2023.

The Environmental and Sustainability Award sets out specific criteria that organisations must demonstrate, including the introduction of green policies, and new ways of dealing with textile recycling.

Both award categories focused on retail initiatives and key achievements over the previous 12 months. SATCoL recently announced its highest trading results and a record-breaking donation to its parent charity of over £11.2m.

In 2022 SATCoL launched its 5-Year Strategic Plan under the theme of ‘Dare to CARE’ – this included new performance measures for People, Planet and Profit. CARE represents SATCoL's values of Compassion, Accountability, Respect and Equality. The company continues to invest in its donation centres and refurbishing more high street shops – 10 new donation centres opened and 9 high street shops were refurbished in the year 2022-23.

SATCoL has also invested heavily in innovations including FibersortTM, an automatic sorting process that identifies and sorts second-hand garments by fibre type, and Project Re:claimTM, a commercial-scale polyester recycling plant designed to recycle end-of-life textiles. Project Re:claim is a joint venture with Project Plan B.