A great place to work where everyone can fulfil their potential
People are at the core of our business and we’re committed to ensuring that SSP is the best part of our colleagues’ career journey. We are committed to respecting the human rights of people across our business and supply chains, and play an important role in the communities where we operate.
Our People Strategy focuses on ensuring SSP is a great place to work where everyone can fulfil their potential. We’ve invested heavily over the last two years in strengthening our employer brand and building our plans and capabilities for driving diversity and inclusion, developing our talent and protecting safety, wellbeing and human rights. As a food business, working to alleviate food poverty and support our local communities is central to our approach.
Our commitments
Commitment 7: Promoting diversity, equity and inclusion
We are committed to promoting an inclusive and engaging culture where everyone can fulfil their potential.
Commitment 8: Protecting safety and wellbeing
We are committed to protecting the safety of our colleagues, customers and clients, and promoting colleague wellbeing.
Commitment 9: Respecting human rights
We are committed to respecting the human rights of people across our business operations and supply chains.
Targets
Each year, improve the colleague engagement score in our global Colleague Engagement Survey.
Each year, maintain Board diversity, with at least 40% women and at least one person from a minority ethnic background.
By 2025, 40% of senior leadership roles held by women.
Target
Each year, ensure appropriate activities to support colleagues’ physical, mental and financial wellbeing, in line with our global wellbeing framework, are in place across all our operating regions.
Targets
Each year, continue to maintain 100% compliance of senior managers (post-induction) to have received modern slavery training.
By 2025, 100% of contracted suppliers with higher human rights risks to undergo our human rights due diligence.
Commitment 10: Supporting our communities
We are committed to supporting our diverse, local communities through charitable partnerships to alleviate food poverty and other causes.
Target
By 2025, all divisions globally to have partnerships with food poverty charities and local charities.
Highlights and case studies
Listening, engaging and acting
Our annual global Colleague Engagement Survey is our biggest listening exercise of the year, giving every colleague across the business globally the chance to share their opinions about what it’s like working for SSP and how we can improve. For our 2023 survey, we partnered with expert survey providers, Gallup, industry leaders in colleague engagement. Over three-quarters of our colleagues took part.
Gallup measures engagement using the ‘Q12 index’ which is a score out of 5 and consists of 12 questions designed to assess various aspects of an employee’s workplace experience, such as their level of job satisfaction, the quality of relationships with colleagues and managers, and their sense of purpose at work. We registered an overall engagement index score
Supporting food and nutrition in India
Supporting local communities is deeply embedded into the culture of our joint venture business, Travel Food Services (TFS) in India. Through its charitable foundation, TFS works to deliver high-impact projects that are sustainable and scalable, under the vision of ‘food and nutrition for all’.
TFS collaborates with NGOs, tribal communities and government authorities to address malnutrition through education and sustainable solutions. Through its ‘One Thousand Days’ initiative, the Foundation continued its support of over 30,000 households in villages across India with food donations focused on fighting malnutrition in children and families in 2023.
£1 million fundraised for Macmillan
We reached the £1 million fundraising milestone for Macmillan Cancer Support. The donation will help the leading cancer charity continue providing physical, emotional and financial support for people living with cancer across the UK.
SSP UK began its partnership with Macmillan in 2018, following a company-wide colleague vote. Since then, teams have committed to raising money through a number of fundraising activities, including ‘Go Green’ days, 'around the world' virtual globetrotting challenges, bake-off competitions, sponsored bike rides and marathons, with additional grants also being provided by the SSP Foundation, a UK registered charity.
Responding to the crisis in Ukraine
Our teams from right across Europe have responded superbly to the crisis in Ukraine. We’ve held fundraising events for refugee appeals in Estonia, Germany, the Nordics, Spain and the UK. We also made direct donations of food, vouchers and other essential items in key travel locations where refugees from the conflict were arriving, including Austria, Cyprus, France, Germany and Hungary.
For example, at the start of the conflict, our team in Germany distributed 11,000 meals and beverages through the Red Cross reception centre at Berlin railway station, including 1,300 sandwiches and 2,000 bottles of water and soft drinks in the first weekend. As a Group we donated £100,000 to support a variety of aid efforts.