People
Our colleagues are at the heart of our business success. We invest in our people to enable them to reach their full potential, as well as providing them with a positive, non-discriminatory and safe working environment.
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Colleague engagement
and recognitionWe want our colleagues to be fully engaged with our business strategy and objectives. We have a regular programme of briefings, huddles, employee conferences and news updates via our enterprise social network, SSP Connections. In addition, we encourage our colleagues to raise any issues and concerns they might have so that we can address them and improve the colleague experience at SSP.
We operate a European Work Council with the objective of providing timely and meaningful information and a forum for consultation to enhance the social dialogue with our European colleagues. The forum addresses transnational issues, which may affect employment, working conditions and the interests of its employees.
New Group Values
Colleagues across the business were consulted as part of a programme to review and relaunch SSP’s new Group Values. Colleagues from every country were asked what they value in SSP, what is good about working at SSP and what values are important for them. The feedback formed the basis of a new set of five Group Values.
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Learning
and DevelopmentOur Learning and Development Strategy is focussed on enabling the business to grow talent from within. At the centre of this strategy is the SSP Academy, our global online learning platform, designed to help us support the development of our colleagues at all levels, as well as delivering corporate and high risk training content in all markets. The Academy is now available in every SSP market, and is automatically set up in all new markets, for example, Brazil, to ensure that high risk and corporate training requirements are covered from the outset. We continue to extend the range of training provided via the Academy. We have trialled and are now rolling out a new Team Leader development programme, initially for UK team members, that will enable colleagues to access training more easily and manage their own development. In the year ahead, we will launch a Global Leadership development programme and coaching for high potential colleagues. This will be reinforced by a core curriculum of leadership and business skills for all colleagues.
Apprenticeship qualifications form a key part of our learning and development strategy, giving our team members the opportunity to develop their careers into junior managerial roles. We offer apprenticeship qualifications in nine of our markets, including Germany, France, Greece, Norway and the UK. Every year more than 200 colleagues commence an apprenticeship. Qualifications include Team Member colleagues achieving a food & beverage apprenticeship, Team Leaders achieving a supervisory apprenticeship and front-line managers completing a management skill qualification. In the UK, we also extended our apprenticeship provision to include opportunities for colleagues in support functions for the first time. All these programmes support individuals to develop their personal skills and support career progression.
Across our operations, we have many partnerships at a local level to offer career opportunities to people from disadvantaged communities.
SSP UK has been in partnership with the AIM Group Foundation and the SSP Foundation on a joint project to support young people into employment. The project has a particular focus on NEET individuals (young people Not in Education, Employment, or Training), and young people who face barriers to work. The young people receive support including CV writing, preparing for interviews, subsidised travel costs for interviews and journey planning.
In North America, SSP partners with Job-Corp, a no-cost education and career technical centre training programme that helps young people aged 16-24 to improve their lives through career technical and academic training. SSP provides mock interviews and hosts job fairs and offers employment to qualified individuals. SSP America is also an employment partner with SARRC working to increase employment opportunities for adults with autism spectrum disorder. As well as providing employment opportunities in our culinary and unit teams, we have also held training courses for employees and managers to advocate, communicate and educate our staff on autism. Our team in Phoenix has developed a partnership with Maricopa Community College Foundation to fund an endowed Scholarship for 10 years. This is awarded to six culinary students each year.
Promoting inclusion and diversity through TFS Coffee Box brand
In India, our Travel Food Services (TFS) business has been working with Airports Authority of India (AAI) to launch a coffee shop at Chennai International Airport, which is managed by speech and hearing impaired (SHI) individuals. The introduction of the Coffee Box outlet is part of TFS’ and AAI’s commitment towards inclusion and diversity. Team members at the airport – including senior coaches, managers and HR teams – were put through special sign language training to be able to connect to the team at Coffee Box.
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Equal opportunities
and diversityOur Equality Policy outlines our expectation that all our employees should be treated with respect and be able to work in an environment in which they can realise their potential, free of harassment and discrimination in any form. We provide training and guidance to all our colleagues to ensure they understand and comply with this policy. One of the ways in which we measure the success of this approach is by monitoring the number of women in senior management roles.
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Anti-bribery and anti-corruption, and whistleblowing
SSP has a Group-wide Anti-Bribery and Anti-Corruption Policy to comply with the Bribery Act 2010, and it periodically reviews its procedures (including due diligence on new partners) to ensure continued effective compliance in its businesses around the world.
The provides a framework to encourage and give all individuals working at all levels of the Group, including employees, consultants and contractors, confidence to ‘blow the whistle’ and report irregularities. Individuals are encouraged to raise concerns with designated persons and/or through the Country Whistleblowing Officer or confidential Group Helpline.
The Audit Committee monitors this policy and reviews annually the number of matters reported and the outcome of any investigations. The Audit Committee periodically reviews the Group’s policies and procedures for preventing and detecting fraud, its systems, controls and policies for preventing bribery and for preventing the facilitation of tax evasion, its code of corporate conduct and business ethics and its policies for ensuring that the Group complies with relevant regulatory and legal requirements. The Audit Committee receives updates on bribery and fraud trends and activity in the business, if any, with individual updates being given to the Audit Committee as needed.
