The voice of our colleagues: taking a look at our visionaries

At Vision Express, we’re passionate about delivering an excellent employer and customer experience. We want our colleagues to have an impact on the business and voice their opinions on how to improve what we do. We’re always ready to adapt and make changes to the way we operate to ensure our company is the best it can be. We spoke with one of our Regional Managers Chris Milne about how our visionaries help the business and what they contribute to our culture, as well as how to join the team. Here’s what he had to say.

What are the visionaries?

“The visionaries are colleagues who live and breathe the company. They are people from every area of the business. This isn’t just in our stores, but also people in support centres. It’s about our business coming together to share a voice and share an opinion on the things that matter.”

Giving our colleagues the chance to share what’s important to them is hugely important. We want to make sure that everyone is listened to at Vision Express. So creating a visionaries team seemed like the way to go.

“We developed a panel of colleagues from all sorts of roles. The idea is that when something is going to have an impact on the business, it goes to certain people within this group who can then offer an opinion, such as how it’s going to impact colleagues and customers. So, it’s not all being decided around a boardroom table.”

Paving the way for change

Our visionaries have been at the heart of a number of projects, such as the Bringing Joy in 2021 conference, as well as the ‘Festival of Joy’ launch, which has contributed to defining our culture and values as a business.

“The visionaries had a big impact on cultural change. They were a key part of the Festival of Joy, which was the launch of the new cultural programme for the company. We helped with everything from its conception, where we developed our customer and colleague promises, right through to the brand direction. Then we went about re-laying this across to our colleagues in terms of the approach we’re going to take and delivering the live broadcast. I did a live webcast with 500 managers, which was pre-recorded that we then sent out to all our stores, which launched the next five-year plan for the business.”

Our visionaries are responsible for helping create positive change, and there are always opportunities for more colleagues to join the panel. Chris had this to say about the process of becoming a visionary:

“At first, people would nominate someone to become a visionary, but more people were engaging with it and asking how to get involved. We included the option to introduce yourself to the visionaries so you can get a feel for who they are and nominate yourself. They’ll look over the nominations and if people leave, new people can come on board. It’s ever-changing.”

‘We have to look after our people’

When asked about how the visionaries separate Vision Express from competitors, Chris said it’s the company’s focus on people and ensuring their voices are heard that makes the business stand out. “I’ve been at the business fifteen years now and it’s great to see the company asking people’s opinions and listening to them. We must look after our people and the way to do that is to listen to what they want, what they need and what they feel.

“I’ve worked with lots of different people across the business. I haven’t necessarily gone to a new location and stayed there because of the location, but because of the team. The fact that we now put our colleagues and our customers at the heart of everything we do is a massive asset. Our customers recognise the impact and our colleagues feel the value that the visionaries bring.”

Are you looking for a new role?

Above all, our visionaries are the voice of our colleagues. They lead the way in defining and shaping our culture. We want our colleagues to connect and engage with our visionaries, we can all collectively share our opinions to continue making Vision Express a great employer.

We care about the growth of our people. Our visionaries help us create better opportunities for our people. We currently have a great range of optometrist roles, so if you’re an eye care professional looking to move your career forward, take a look at our jobs today and contact our team for more information.