Believe in U Programme – building confidence in female colleagues

From internal research we have conducted and through listening to our colleagues it became evident that our female colleagues often lack confidence in applying for more senior roles. In addition to this, in our retail stores only 37% of Store Managers and Area Managers are female. To try to improve upon this, we created a development programme called ‘Believe in U’.

The Believe in U programme has been designed to build confidence and self-esteem for female, and those who identify as female, colleagues. The programme consists of four face to face workshops and three 1:1 coaching sessions over a six month period.

The first 15 female colleagues from retail stores have successfully completed the programme and intakes for Head Office, End of Life Services and Starbucks franchise colleagues have been scheduled, followed by another intake from retail stores by the end of 2023.

We hope to have run the programme for 100 delegates by 2025 with the aim of  increasing our female store manager population to 50% by 2025.

Feedback from the first Believe in U programme was really positive, with the following quotes given by delegates:

“The workshops I attended have given me the tools to look at myself and family life and see what was best for all of us. The course gave me the confidence to say I have the ability to try other things and go out and look for them.”

“Just want to thank you for a great day today. I really enjoyed it. Looking forward to the next sessions.”

“The course has given me the confidence to apply for the next role up. I would not have done that six months ago!”