WHSmith is committed to equality and diversity through its policies, practices and procedures. All employees are given equal and fair treatment, and this applies to recruitment and selection, terms and conditions of employment, promotion, training and development opportunities and employment benefits. In order to ensure that we fulfil our commitment, we have systems in place to map the diversity profile of our workforce.
During the year we reviewed all of our diversity policies to ensure compliance with the Single Equality Act and created a companywide diversity training programme, which will be rolled out during 2011/12. In the year ahead, we also plan to finalise our diversity strategy, underpinned by a benchmarking exercise to compare WHSmith’s practices to those of other relevant retailers.
We continue to work on initiatives which support specific groups within our workforce. Examples include the extension of our flexible working schemes to support working parents and carers, and a new partnership with A4E, a ‘welfare to work’ organisation, to work exclusively on supporting stores recruitment.