Blog
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Supporting our People
As a responsible business we are looking at how we can continue to ensure a solid foundation of certainty and feeling of safety, for our foodies. By certainty I mean, knowing that regardless of who you are, where you are from or what you believe in, you will feel belonging, inclusion and knowing that everyone is treated as an equal, with the same opportunities and encouragement as the next.
With our bustling contracts now fully opening their doors, and our foodies doing what they do best, we welcome in new employees and we continue to evolve. Having looked at our People Data in line with our Diversity, Inclusion and Equality Policy we have highlighted results to be truly proud of, and also acknowledge where we can do better. By regularly extracting this data we are able to better understand our workforce and in doing so, we can better support. We are extremely honoured to have such a diverse workforce, our latest data showed results of having foodies from 29 different countries, that majority of the roles within our contracts are represented by women and that 6.5% of our employees represent the LGBTQ+ community.
By the use of our Diversity and Inclusion calendar, we aim to not only highlight awareness days, but also to educate and support. By sharing information and encouraging open conversations of these awareness days, we aim to create a compassionate and informed group of foodies. For the first half of the year, I am working with our D&I committee to educate more of our foodies on what it truly means to be an ally. Recently I have discovered that at times there is a misconception of the true meaning of an ally, by means that an ally is an expert. We want to create an environment where our foodies understand that being an ally means, being kind, passing no judgement and supporting their colleagues both in work and in the outside world. We encourage questions, as questions follow with understanding and the greater the understanding, the greater the support.
Inline with support, we encourage our people to make use of our wonderful partnership with Hospitality Action and their Employee Assistance Programme. Having this support readily available is very powerful and means that our foodies have professional support for their mental health at their fingertips. Along with Hospitality Action’s EAP, we make an effort to ensure that the mental health and wellbeing of our people is a continued focus. This plays into our Diversity, Inclusion and Equality strategy but also forms part of who we set out to be as a supportive organisation.
Candice Van Antwerp, Head of People
