'Straight to Stuart' | M&S staff have a direct line to their CEO - should yours?

M&S is rolling out signage of guidance on the symptoms of breast cancer across 1500 of its UK fitting rooms, following a suggestion from its store-front employees.

The signage was implemented after being proposed by an employee as part of a suggestion scheme titled Straight to Stuart, enabling employees to propose changes directly to M&S CEOs Stuart Machin and Katie Bickerstaffe. The suggestion came from 15 employees after a fellow colleague was diagnosed with breast cancer.

On LinkedIn, Michael Kissman, head of colleague communications at M&S shared his thoughts on the new scheme. He said: “Last week I hosted a live broadcast event where any of our 70,000 colleagues could suggest anything they wanted to our CEOs Stuart Machin and Katie Bickerstaffe.

“This is a build on our Straight to Stuart campaign where colleagues can quite literally go straight to the CEO… and they get a personal reply from Stuart straight back. So far this year almost 6,000 have done so, with their suggestions contributing to making M&S a better place to work and a better place to shop.”