Case study: How Royal Mail supports diversity and equal opportunity in its workforce
Royal Mail is one of the largest UK employers, as it directly employs approximately 139,000 people. On average, 1 out of every 175 employed people in the UK works for it. Thus, supporting diversity and equal opportunity in its workforce is a key priority for Royal Mail.
This case study is based on the 2015–16 Corporate Responsibility Report by Royal Mail published on the Global Reporting Initiative Sustainability Disclosure Database that can be found at this link. Through all case studies we aim to demonstrate that CSR/ sustainability reporting done responsibly is achieved by identifying a company’s most important impacts on the environment and stakeholders and by measuring, managing and changing.
Abstract
Making sure its workforce reflects the wider society is a key priority for Royal Mail Tweet This!. In order to support diversity and equal opportunities for all employees Royal Mail took action to:
- promote diversity and inclusiveness through the Diversity Council, unconscious bias workshops and partnerships
- support gender diversity
- employ disabled people and support employees with disabilities
- protect dignity and respect in the workplace
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With this case study you will see:
- Which are the most important impacts (material issues) Royal Mail has identified;
- How Royal Mail proceeded with stakeholder engagement, and
- What actions were taken by Royal Mail to support diversity and equal opportunity in its workforce
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What are the material issues the company has identified?
In its 2015–16 Corporate Responsibility Report Royal Mail identified a range of material issues, such as customer service and relations, environmental protection, business integrity, community relations. Among these, as one of the UK’s largest employers, directly employing around 139,000 people, supporting diversity and equal opportunity in its workforce stands out as a key material issue for Royal Mail.
Stakeholder engagement in accordance with the GRI Standards
The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) defines the Principle of Stakeholder Inclusiveness when identifying material issues (or a company’s most important impacts) as follows:
Stakeholders must be consulted in the process of identifying a company’s most important impacts and their reasonable expectations and interests must be taken into account. This is an important cornerstone for CSR / sustainability reporting done responsibly.
Key stakeholder groups Royal Mail engages with:
| Stakeholder Group | Method of engagement |
| Customers | · Customer services interact with customer conversations through phone, email and twitter · Royal Mail’s postmen and women interact with customers daily · Sales teams interact with business customers |
| Colleagues | · Weekly Work Time Listening and Learning sessions · Just Say It (an email link to CEO) · Town Hall forums and engagements with senior managers · Royal Mail’s monthly magazine, Courier |
| Unions | · Weekly meetings between CWU representatives and frontline operational managers · Ad-hoc meetings to support individuals · Industrial Relations team engages with Unions on business-wide issues |
| Investors
| · Investor relations programme · Annual General Meeting (AGM) · Annual Report and Financial Statements · Investors section on Royal Mail’s website · Internal communication channels for employee shareholders |
| Regulator Ofcom
| · Royal Mail’s Regulation and Competition Policy team regularly engages through face-to-face meetings, reporting and consultation responses |
| Elected representatives and officials | · Public Affairs and EU Policy teams engage regularly with elected representatives and government officials by responding to formal consultations, providing briefings and managing Royal Mail’s outreach programme to postal operations including “Walking in your postie’s shoes” |
| Local communities | · Royal Mail’s CR Team engages with charity partners · Colleagues interact with communities daily |
| Suppliers | · Group Procurement liaises with Royal Mail’s suppliers before sourcing, and then engages with contract managers |
How stakeholder engagement was made to identify material issues
In 2015-16 Royal Mail conducted, through an independent consultancy, a materiality assessment, gathering stakeholder feedback through surveys and interviews and, also, through a stakeholder panel that included key stakeholders, in order to prioritize material issues.
What actions were taken by Royal Mail to support diversity and equal opportunity in its workforce?
In its 2015–16 Corporate Responsibility Report Royal Mail reports that it took the following actions for supporting diversity and equal opportunity in its workforce:
- Promoting diversity and inclusiveness through the Diversity Council, unconscious bias workshops and partnerships
- Royal Mail’s Diversity Council, responsible for fostering an inclusive culture, also supervises diversity steering groups and monitors KPIs relating to Royal Mail’s diversity performance.
- Employees with assessment responsibilities attend unconscious bias workshops and Royal Mail also created a new e-learning tool regarding unconscious bias, for managers.
- In order to ensure equal opportunities for people from diverse backgrounds, Royal Mail partners with relevant organisations.
- Supporting gender diversity
- 2015-16: Royal Mail adopted a balanced shortlist approach to recruitment that facilitated an increase in the number of women hired for frontline operational roles (from 28 to 32%).
- Royal Mail’s Spring Forward and Springboard programmes help junior female managers and female employees in non-management roles, respectively, grow and develop – during 2015-16, 269 female employees attended Springboard courses.
- Royal Mail created Connect, an online mentoring programme, to help women at Royal Mail develop through support from potential mentors.
- Employing disabled people and supporting employees with disabilities
- Royal Mail is a Disability Two Ticks employer, welcoming job applications from candidates with a disability and is also a national partner of disability charity Remploy, in order to provide jobs and placements for disabled people – Royal Mail employed, through Remploy, more than 2,000 people with disabilities since 2006.
- Royal Mail supports disabled employees by making reasonable adjustments in the workplace and by providing additional training, when needed.
- Protecting dignity and respect in the workplace
- 2015: Royal Mail’s ‘We can sort it out’ anti-bullying and harassment campaign was launched, supported by a new mediation process regarding bullying and harassment incidents.
Which GRI indicators/Standards have been addressed?
The GRI indicators/Standards addressed in this case are:
1) G4-LA12: Composition of governance bodies and breakdown of employees per employee category according to gender, age group, minority group membership, and other indicators of diversity – the updated GRI Standard is: Disclosure 405-1 Diversity of governance bodies and employees
2) G4-LA13: Ratio of basic salary and remuneration of women to men by employee category, by significant locations of operation – the updated GRI Standard is: Disclosure 405-2 Ratio of basic salary and remuneration of women to men
Why diversity matters
- A diverse workforce drives both innovation and market growth for companies (Harvard Business Review)
- Employees from companies embracing diversity are 45 percent more likely to report that their company’s market share increased during the preceding year and 70 more likely to report that their company captured a new market (Harvard Business Review)
- Workplace diversity across a number of dimensions, like education or personality, improves a group’s performance and creativity (Stanford Graduate School of Business)
- Diversity enhances a group’s ability to manage conflict (Stanford Graduate School of Business)
- Gender-diverse teams are more productive compared to single-gender ones (MIT News)
- Switching from a single-sex office to a gender-diverse one could increase revenues by approximately 41% (MIT News)
References:
1) This case study was compiled using published information by Royal Mail which is located at the link below. For the sake of readability, we did not use brackets or ellipses but made sure that the extra or missing words did not change the report’s meaning. If you would like to quote these written sources from the original please revert to the following link:
2) http://www.fbrh.co.uk/en/global-reporting-initiative-gri-g4-guidelines-download-page
3) https://g4.globalreporting.org/Pages/default.aspx
4) https://www.globalreporting.org/standards/gri-standards-download-center/
5) https://hbr.org/2013/12/how-diversity-can-drive-innovation
6) https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/insights/diverse-backgrounds-personalities-can-strengthen-groups
7) http://news.mit.edu/2014/workplace-diversity-can-help-bottom-line-1007
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