Colleagues

Colleagues

We will become a more inclusive company and one that better reflects the communities and customers we source from and serve. Our colleagues will feel empowered to be themselves, to feel at home with us, build new skills, progress in their careers and share in our successes.

Our targets

  • Improve gender balance to 35% women in senior leadership and 40% women in management by 2025.
  • Provide five million hours of skills for life learning by 2025.

Our FY22/23 progress

  • 25.8% of senior leaders and 38.9% of managers are women (FY21/22: 25.2% and 37.9% respectively).
  • Colleagues completed over 2.6 million hours of skills for life learning during FY22/23 bringing the total number of hours completed since FY19/20 to 6.6 million, thereby surpassing our target.

Our Inclusion and Diversity strategy

Our Group-wide Inclusion and Diversity strategy and action plan is focused on four themes. It was developed by our People and Culture taskforce, a cross-section of representatives from around the business and included input from more colleagues via ‘listening sessions’.

Senior Leadership


Our senior leadership team role models Inclusion and Diversity. Representation and authentic sponsors of culture change.

A Culture of Inclusion

Our culture supports everyone to thrive and succeed. Deep understanding of diverse groups to enhance the ‘lived experience’.

Customer Proposition

We commit to accessible and inclusive products, and multichannel experiences. Inclusive, accessible design as a brand differentiator.

Inclusive Youth Employment

Our impact on society is amplified through investing in skills and work experience. Targeted initiatives focused on addressing disadvantaged youth unemployment.

An agile and inclusive culture led by trust

  • In FY 22/23, our employee Net Promoter Score for colleagues’ willingness to recommend their workplace to others was 54, which is in the top 5% of global retailers. Each part of the business also developed local action plans to address colleague feedback, which have been endorsed by the Group Executive and Board.
  • The Inclusion and Diversity (I&D) Forum was established this year, which brings together senior leaders and representatives from our affinity networks from across the Group. The I&D Forum is working to improve colleague sentiment in minority and marginalised groups and to build greater allyship among majority groups.
  • In FY 22/23, the I&D Forum has recommended two questions to be added to our colleague engagement survey on colleagues feeling valued and fair opportunities. Our eNPS scores for those were 43 (22 above the external retail benchmark putting us at the top 25% of retailers) and 69 (34 above the external retail benchmark putting us at the top 5% of retailers) respectively.
  • We have also been monitoring the rising cost of living across our markets and have taken action to support colleagues in our stores and head offices. On colleague pay, for example, salary increases or one off payments were awarded in the UK, France, Poland and Iberia, which focused disproportionately on store colleagues.

Skills for life

We offer a range of opportunities for colleagues to learn new skills and keep improving and growing. Colleagues completed over 2.6 million hours of skills for life learning during FY22/23 bringing the total number of hours completed since FY19/20 to 6.6 million, thereby surpassing our target.

Colleague case studies