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Engagement and Wellbeing

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Engagement and Wellbeing in our Workplaces and Communities

As a trusted partner it is essential for us to provide a safe and inclusive environment for our colleagues where everyone can thrive and develop. Engagement and Wellbeing in our Workplaces and Communities addresses four issues; Colleague Wellbeing, Health and Safety, Responsible Recruitment and Employment; Engagement, Development and Retention; and Local Causes and Community Engagement.

Engagement and Wellbeing in our Workplaces and Communities

Colleague Wellbeing, Health and Safety

At Bakkavor, we promote a proactive safety awareness and accident prevention culture by empowering employees to do the right thing, raise risk awareness and actively support solutions to improve the Group’s performance. We consistently outperform industry figures on workplace safety and target zero serious accidents.

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Health, safety and wellbeing

Responsible Recruitment and Employment

Bakkavor directly employs around 19,000 colleagues, including almost 16,000 in the UK alone. We put in place policies, practices and values which foster a culture that guarantees fair labour rights and ethical employment in our own operations and minimise any risk of modern slavery – an issue we take extremely seriously.

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Recruitment, training and development

Engagement, Development and Retention

At Bakkavor, we’re committed to providing a workplace environment where people are engaged, motivated to develop themselves, and feel empowered to speak up. We’re working to foster greater inclusion for our current and future colleagues and to maintain open and two-way communication channels.

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Diversity and inclusion

Local Causes/Community Engagement

We pride ourselves on our strong ties to the communities in which we work, supporting causes and projects important to them and our people. Rallying our colleagues and communities around causes engages all of us with the opportunity to make a difference as well as producing positive outcomes for charitable organisations.

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Local Causes/Community Engagement
  • Colleague wellbeing, health and safety
  • Colleague wellbeing, health and safety
  • Responsible recruitment and employment
  • Engagement, development and retention
  • Local causes/community engagement

Colleague Wellbeing, Health and Safety

The health and safety of our colleagues is, and always will be, our biggest priority. We strive for zero harm as safety can never be taken for granted, and there are always opportunities to learn and improve.

Our business is incredibly proud of the way in which our colleagues worked to continue delivering fresh prepared food to our customers and consumers amid supply chain challenges and the continued disruption brought by the COVID-19 during 2021.

Our commitments

  • Demonstrate a continued commitment to H&S measurement and performance improvement, aiming for zero serious accidents by reducing significant risks across the Group.
  • Continue to maintain UK performance by out-performing industry average on numbers of major accidents and >7 days lost time accidents.
  • Develop our Wellbeing strategy in order to be recognised by our colleagues as supporting them to achieve positive wellbeing.
Read the fact sheet: Colleague Wellbeing, Health and Safety

Responsible Recruitment and Employment

Responsible Recruitment and Employment ensures we have policies, practices and values which foster a culture that guarantees fair labour rights and ethical employment in our own operations.

At Bakkavor, our values and culture will never be compatible with any form of modern slavery. We have a Group Human Rights and Ethical Programme in place, driven by our Ethical Trade Team, which is comprised of a Head of Human Resources, two Senior HR Business Partners and an external ethical trade specialist. The programme is overseen by our Management Board and progress is updated at ESG Executive Committee meetings by our Chief People Officer. We are committed to taking an active, leadership role in driving best practice in this area and raising awareness across our business so that our colleagues are well-equipped to understand and recognise risks and report any concerns.

Our commitments

  • Drive awareness and action on the issue of modern slavery, rolling out campaigns and training so that our colleagues know the indicators and how to report them (ongoing).
  • Lead our industry on rolling out completion of the new Sedex SAQ and new risk assessment (UK sites by 2020, and Group-wide by 2021).
  • Work only with UK Labour Providers that are GLAA registered, commit to the Responsible Recruitment Toolkit and work towards the standards (ongoing).

Read the fact sheet: Responsible Recruitment and Employment and more details can be found in our latest Modern Slavery Statement.

Engagement, Development and Retention

Providing a workplace where our colleagues feel engaged, empowered, and able to be themselves is a core business priority. This supports our objectives of attracting and retaining the best talent and contributing to the local economic development of our communities by being an employer of choice. To do this, we have three main action areas; colleague engagement through open and constructive two-way communication; fostering an equal, inclusive and diverse workplace; and developing our talent through training and progression opportunities and fostering early careers through our apprenticeship and graduate schemes.

Our commitments

  • Implement a range of workplace opportunities designed to increase the attractiveness, accessibility and inclusivity of employment at Bakkavor.
  • Promote an inclusive working environment, where differences are valued, and individuals feel they can be themselves, without judgement.
  • Conduct a regular Group-wide employee engagement survey, aiming for an overall employee engagement score above industry average.
  • Continue to empower our employees to speak up on issues important to them by promoting open channels of communication through our Site Employee Forums (“SEFs”) and the annual Group Employee Forum.
  • Reduce our employee turnover and maintain below industry average.

Read the fact sheet: Engagement, Development and Retention

Local Causes/Community Engagement

As a major employer, we pride ourselves on the strong ties we create with the communities in which we work. Therefore, in addition to our Group charity partners we encourage and enable our sites to support local charities, schools, sports teams, vulnerable people and projects important to them. By rallying our colleagues around these key causes, we believe we can have a positive impact on our local areas and help communities who need it the most.

Bakkavor UK has a three-year partnership with two important charities: GroceryAid and Natasha’s Allergy Foundation. In parallel, Bakkavor US business supports four foodbanks local to our sites, and a matched giving scheme to raise further funds to support each foodbank.

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Our commitment:

  • Fundraise and support our key Group charities through Group donations and colleague engagement fundraising activities (ongoing).

Read the fact sheet: Local Causes and Community Engagement