A great place to work where everyone can fulfil their potential
SSP is a people business. Our goals to create a leading proposition for customers, to protect the environment and generate lasting and sustainable returns for all our stakeholders, start with our 35,000 colleagues around the world.
We want to make SSP a great place to work - diverse and inclusive, attracting great talent, and offering colleagues the support they need to be themselves, develop their skills and achieve their full potential.
Our Sustainability Strategy focuses on colleagues and community as one of its three main pillars. It includes a commitment to treat each other with care and respect, to create a safe and healthy work environment, embrace diversity and protect human rights and support the communities where we live and work, mostly through schemes to alleviate food poverty.
Our focus areas
Treating all our colleagues with care and respect
We value and respect our colleagues and create an environment where all colleagues feel informed and engaged.
Promoting and protecting safety and wellbeing
We protect the safety of our colleagues and customers, and promote our colleagues’ wellbeing.
Embracing diversity and protecting human rights
We are committed to promoting a diverse inclusive culture, and respecting human rights across our business and supply chain.
Supporting our communities
We support the communities in which we operate through partnerships with charitable and other local organisations, particularly in alleviating food poverty.
Case study
Listening, engaging and acting
In 2022, we conducted our second global colleague engagement survey. We are strongly encouraged by the improvements in both the response and positivity rates, compared to 2021, with 82.6% of our colleagues choosing to respond (+10%) and an overall positivity rate of 76% (+1%). We also saw the positive impact of actions taken since our last survey. For example, in 2021 colleagues told us they would like to see more opportunities for learning and development. In response, we implemented a number of plans and initiatives, including the roll-out of our new People Leaders Programme and an increased focus on development in the performance cycle. As a result, we saw a 5% increase in positive responses to the question on access to training and a 17% increase in the question regarding colleagues’ development conversations with their line manager.
Case study
How are you really doing?
We ran our “How are you really doing?” mental health awareness campaign in May 2022 right across our global operations. The aim was to help colleagues feel comfortable to talk about mental wellbeing, not least given the added pressures many have felt because of Covid and the current cost of living crisis. As part of the campaign, we equipped managers with the right training and tools to have meaningful conversations with their teams and we shone a light on some of the stories colleagues have bravely shared about their own mental health journeys.
Case study
Partnering to boost diversity, equality and inclusion
Working in partnership and learning from others to help accelerate and complement our DEI strategy is crucial to our approach. In 2022 we teamed up with Welcoming Everyone in Hospitality, Travel and Leisure (WiTHL) a multi-stakeholder group devoted to increasing diversity and inclusion in our sector through cross-industry development programmes for women and people from ethnic minority backgrounds. It gives us a chance to interact with other companies pursuing a similar agenda to our own. In collaboration with our menopause network, we also joined GenM in 2022, an organisation focused on improving the menopause experience for all women and those in transition. In Australia we have partnered with the Western Australia Disability Network, through which we are offering placements for neurodiverse colleagues, such as those with autism or ADHD.
Case study
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.