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 progress

We’ve now reached 25.2% women in senior leadership and 37.7% in management, an increase from 36.1% and 23.2% respectively since last year, on track to our target.
Colleagues completed 2.3 million hours of skills for life learning during 2021/22 bringing the total number of hours completed since 2019/20 to 3.9 million, on track to our target.
3,890 apprentices across the group in 2021/22.

View our colleague infographic

Our Inclusion and Diversity strategy
Gender balance
Skills for life

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.

View examples in Responsible Business Report

Gender balance

We are focused on enabling all colleagues, regardless of gender, race, background, or any other characteristics, to reach their full potential and believe that having a diverse workforce, with fair representation, is strategically important and generates value for all our stakeholders.

% of female colleagues based on headcount

	2019/20	2020/21	2021/22
Total workforce	42 %	43 %	43 %
All management	35 %	36 %	38 %
Senior management*	24 %	23 %	25 %
Group Executive	17 %	17 %	23%
Board of Directors	38 %	44 %	50 %

* The senior management population reflects those executive leaders included in our Alignment Share plan (see pages 75-104 of the Annual Report and Accounts 2021/22 for more detail). 2020/21 data reported has been rebaselined to show progress against our target. This means it is not directly comparable with data for 2019/20 and 2018/19.

Skills for life

We offer a range of opportunities for colleagues to learn new skills and keep improving and growing. Colleagues completed over 2.2 million hours of skills for life training during 2021/22.

View in Responsible Business Report

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