People
We want our organisation to be a place where people love to work, where each and every member of the WHSmith team can be themselves, develop the skills to flourish, and where they feel safe and able to lead well-balanced healthy lives.
We understand the importance of an open and honest culture where we communicate effectively with our employees and provide opportunities for them to offer feedback and opinions which are listened to and considered in our decision-making processes. Our employee forums, listening groups, question and answer sessions with senior leaders and annual employee engagement survey help to determine how we can improve the employee experience.
WHSmith is committed to promoting a culture of diversity, equity and inclusion through our policies, procedures and working practices. We want to ensure that all our employees receive equal and fair treatment, and this applies to recruitment and selection, terms and conditions of employment, promotion, training, development opportunities and employment benefits.
We're working hard to be an inclusive employer with a diverse workforce where everyone has a sense of belonging. We're investing in training and development of our employees, and constantly evaluating how we can better engage and collaborate. The physical and mental wellbeing of our people is important to us and we're committed to providing the right support network to help everyone thrive.
Our customers want to know that the goods they buy from us are made by worked who are treated well and without hard to the environment. We're engaging with our suppliers to ensure that they are treating all workers with dignity, respect and without discrimination, and working to continually improve labour conditions for supply chain employees.
We are aiming to:
Be an inclusive employer with a workforce representative of the communities we serve, and increase diversity of senior management.
Create an environment that supports physical, mental and financial wellbeing.
Protect worker rights in our supply chain.
Human Rights
As an international retailer, we have a responsibility to respect and support the dignity, wellbeing and human rights of all those who work on our behalf, and the customers and communities that we serve. We must act in a way that avoids infringing the rights of others and prevents adverse human rights impacts from our activities. We manage human rights risks through our due diligence processes in line with the United Nations Guiding Principles for Business and Human Rights. Our Human Rights Policy provides further details on our approach and sets out the minimum requirements that everyone working for and with WHSmith must meet,
Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
At WHSmith, our people are fundamental to the success of our business whatever their age, race, religion, gender, sexual orientation or disability. We continue to focus on developing a culture of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), backed up by a framework of policies, procedures and ways of working.
We hope that our people genuinely feel that they can bring their whole selves to work. We want to ensure that all our employees receive equal and fair treatment, and this applies to recruitment and selection, terms and conditions of employment, promotion training, development opportunities and employment benefits. We believe in creating a working environment that is free from discrimination and harassment and we will not permit or tolerate this in any form.
Our DEI action plans set out how we are working towards our goal of creating an environment where everybody is welcome and feels they belong. Our DEI Committee enables colleagues from across our business to engage directly with leadership and work collaboratively on improvements. We have continued to improve the quality of data and information that we hold in relation to our people, with data collection identified as an ongoing priority for our business. We recognise the value that employee networks can bring. The founding of employee networks, including those for Pride, Gender Equity, Race and Culture, Disability and Parents and Carers has provided a vehicle for employee-led engagement and input to our DEI strategy. Further details are available in our Diversity, Equity and Inclusion policy.
40% of our senior management positions are held by women
We continue to develop our succession pipeline. Mentoring plays a critical role in the development of our talent pipeline at all levels, and our senior female executives act as mentors to support others with their development requirements.
We remain committed to improving diversity at senior levels and the proportion of women at Senior manager level. Our latest Gender Pay Report shows a reduction in the pay gap due to greater proportion of females moving into senior roles.
Learning and Development
Our learning and development programmes are designed to provide our employees with the knowledge and skills they need to deliver their role and support them as they develop their careers. We provide a range of learning opportunities and initiatives to help our employees develop their skills and experience. These include online courses, workshops, mentoring and coaching, and we continue to review and develop these activities to ensure that they meet the requirements of our business and the learning and development needs for our colleagues.
Mentoring plays a critical role in the development of our talent pipeline at all levels, providing targeted one-to-one support for individuals from someone in a more senior role. Managers and senior executives act as mentors supporting employees with their development requirements to ensure they are ready to take on more challenging roles.
Employee Engagement
Listening and responding to our employees is a vital part of involving them in our business. We conduct an annual engagement survey and act on their feedback. We run quarterly employee forum meetings with representatives from each team to discuss different issues and share ideas about how to make our offices a better place to work. Our senior leadership team hold employee briefings throughout the year on business strategy and commercial performance.
Our Code of Business Conduct sets out how our business operates, and what is expected of every person who works for and on behalf of WHSmith. It includes our policies relating to individual conduct, including anti-bribery and anti-corruption measures, conflicts of interest and data protection, as well as those relating to how we work together, including diversity, equity and inclusion, anti-harassment and bullying and health and safety. It also sets out our business standards in relation to fair trading practices, such as pricing and marketing, quality and product safety, trade controls, competition and supply chain practices.
Health, Safety and Wellbeing
Ensuring the health and safety of both customers and employees is one of our most important responsibilities. We take safety extremely seriously and promote high standards throughout our organisation and across our supply chain. Our Health and Safety Policy sets out a summary of responsibilities, processes and procedures relating to health and safety at WHSmith.
We provide health and safety training to all staff and specialised training where it is needed. Our training covers key issues such as fire safety, manual handling and food hygiene. We have seen a long-term decline in the number of reportable accidents, with a decrease of over 60% in the past decade.
We have as many mental health first aiders as physical health first aiders
We believe that supporting the mental health of our employees is just as important as looking after their physical health and safety.
Our aim it to ensure that all line managers are trained in mental health awareness and that they have access to the right tools to be able to support colleagues who may be experiencing stressful life events.
WHSmith has partnered with several organisations to ensure our mental wellbeing provision is robust and meaningful. In the UK, the Retail Trust provides our Employee Assistance Programme (EAP), offering support for employees and immediate family members, and in store counselling when incidents occur which could impact the wellbeing of the whole team. Localised EAP offerings are also available for employees in other countries. The WHSmith Benevolent Fund continues to provide financial help to current and retired employees in times of hardship.
Supply chain
Our customers want to be confident that the products they buy have been sourced ethically, made by workers who are not exposed to exploitation or unsafe working conditions, and without harm to the environment. Our ethical trade activities are part of our commercial strategy and help to build stronger and more transparent relationships with our suppliers. We are committed to respecting human rights across our supply chain by providing training, sharing knowledge and engaging in collaborative industry initiatives. WHSmith is a member of the Ethical Trading Initiative (ETI), an alliance of companies, trade unions and non-governmental organisations that promotes respect for workers’ rights around the globe. Our Responsible Sourcing Standards are based on the ETI’s Base Code, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) core conventions and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. They underpin all our ethical trade strategy and activities. We will only place orders with suppliers who are committed to working towards compliance with these standards.
Our ethical trade programme has three key elements: training for buyers so that they understand the role they need to play; factory audits to assess supplier compliance with our Responsible Sourcing Standards; and supplier engagement projects aiming to continually improve labour rights and working conditions for factory employees. Details of the factories that we work with can be found here.
Our salient issues
Our salient issues are:
- Health and Safety
- Freedom of association and collective bargaining
-Social insurance
- Working hours and overtime
-Supply chain transparency
- Gender equality
We spend a significant amount of time engaging with suppliers to support them as they seek to improve conditions for workers. This engagement includes resolving specific problems identified during audits and on longer-term projects to improve the most common issues such as health and safety or worker representation. Our health and safety programme provides training for factory management on setting policy, developing effective safety management systems, training workers and auditing the workplace to ensure working conditions are safe.
We are working with key suppliers on a Worker Representation Initiative helping factory managers to develop better worker representation and engagement processes. The aim of the project is to help some of our key suppliers to develop fully functioning worker management committees to represent workers on any matter affecting their rights and to resolve the problems they raise.
We have a worker hotline in place to allow workers in our supply chain to report any issues to us in confidence. We investigate and follow up on any calls to ensure appropriate action has been taken.
Modern Slavery
Modern slavery, including all forms of slavery, servitude, forced and compulsory labour and human trafficking, is an abhorrent abuse of human rights. We are committed to ensuring full respect for the human rights of anyone working for us in any capacity and we take a zero tolerance to modern slavery. We have developed a due diligence process to make sure we are identifying, assessing and providing appropriate risk control for any modern slavery risks. This includes mitigation and remedy where needed. We have reported on this area in detail in a separate Modern Slavery Statement which is available here.
