Inverness care home provider appoints new people and culture director
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Inverness-based care provider, Meallmore Ltd, has appointed Rachel Gothard to the newly created role of people and culture director.
In her new position, Ms Gothard will build on the company’s people and culture strategy, with a particular emphasis on employee experience for all 1,700 members of staff who work in Meallmore’s 26 care homes around Scotland, including three homes in Inverness.
Ms Gothard will work closely with Meallmore’s recruitment team and learning and development team to continue to attract and retain the best employees. This will be through identifying staff training, implementing company incentives, and attracting the best talent in the industry to ensure that Meallmore continues to have the best workforce who provide the highest quality care for residents across Scotland.
She joins Meallmore from Baxters Food Group where she was head of human resources, for Europe, leading the HR team to deliver high quality people routines, covering five manufacturing sites across Europe and their head office. Ms Gothard, also spent 22 years at Tesco PLC, where most recently she was group people manager in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland. There she was responsible for the people agenda for over 4,000 colleagues and she successfully led the team to deliver several structure change projects throughout the business.
Speaking about her appointment, she said: “Meallmore has such a great reputation for providing exceptional care and that’s what initially attracted me to this role. The company has such a supportive environment and brilliant, family values which they really stick to.
"Since starting my new position, everyone has been so welcoming and I’m very glad to be part of the Meallmore family.
“At Meallmore, we pride ourselves on our excellent standards. I look forward to supporting team members in all departments - from caring and hospitality, to management and support colleagues - in their efforts to further develop the company’s aim of being a great place to live and a great place to work.”
Cillian Hennessey, Meallmore’s commercial director added: “We’re so glad to have Rachel on board at Meallmore. She’s sure to build on all that our company has achieved over its past 35 years to move forward our people agenda.
“We’ve always been committed to leading, supporting and improving our workforce, and that’s why we were thrilled to achieve the prestigious Investors in People (IIP) Gold Accreditation in autumn 2021, demonstrating our commitment to our colleagues. In this industry, our people are crucial to what we do, and we are committed to making sure they get the best experience working with us, which also results in us getting the best out of them. With Rachel’s new role, she will build on this and beyond. We’re really excited to see what the future holds for all our staff across our care homes.”
