Colleagues

Rank is made up of enthusiastic and committed individuals, who have a desire to deliver the best experience for our customers

Rank's values

• Service: We start with the customer.  We do everything in our power to deliver special service every time
• Teamwork: We pull together across brands, channels and locations to perform at our very best
• Ambition: We challenge the way we do things and explore new ways to excite and entertain our customers and outshine the competition
• Responsiblity: We understand our responsibility to all in our communities.  We act with the highest integrity and honesty in everything we do
• Solutions: We act positively to get to the heart of problems quickly and find ways to solve them
   

Our actions and policies

2017/18 progress

• Continued to embed the Group-wide values, STARS, into everything we do;
• established the ‘Be Talent’ model to develop talented individuals within the Group; and
• published our first Gender Pay Gap report as part of the Group’s diversity and inclusion agenda.

2018/19 current plans

• Continue to develop our Human Resources system to provide maximum value to the Group;
• continue to deliver the Group’s diversity and inclusion strategy;
• develop management and leadership capability across the brands and in our support functions;
• review reward packages to ensure they reflect the requirements of our increasingly diverse workforce; and
• closely consider the implications of Brexit across the Group for its workforce.

Engagement

Engagement at every level across our business is something we take very seriously. On the back of our bi-annual employee opinion survey, ‘Your View’, departments create action plans to ensure that colleagues are not only aware of the results, but are actively engaged in next steps to address key challenges per team, department and at a wider organisational level.

In 2017/18 employee engagement rose by three percentage points to 74%, with a 90% completion rate.

Alongside ‘Your View’, individuals are also invited to attend ‘Talking STARS’ meetings which occur at both brand and support office level. These meetings are facilitated by senior leaders in the business, such as the human resources director or the director of investor relations and communications. Operating on a quarterly basis, these sessions encourage colleagues to talk about opportunities and ideas and how they can be implemented within the business.

The above forums operate alongside formal employee forums where feedback is gathered from managers and team members in both our venues and support offices. All these channels ensure collaboration to solve key issues permeates through the organisation to improve operational performance.

On a day-to-day basis, teams go to great lengths to ensure that colleagues are engaged in key projects. Examples are the ‘Diversity in Gaming’ events aligned to the Group’s diversity and inclusion agenda or the implementation of the ‘Retail Activity Forum’ to ensure projects are effectively landed in our venues. At the heart of these approaches is a desire to ensure active engagement in all that we do.

Human rights

The board considers that it is not necessary for the Group to operate a specific human rights policy at present. Our policies already comply with relevant laws and respect the human rights of our employees and other stakeholders in the business.

Health and safety

The key objectives of the 2017/18 health and safety (‘H&S’) strategy were:

• Continue to improve H&S awareness by training all general managers to understand and put in place club-specific risk assessments and ensure that ‘safe systems of work’ training has been provided to 95% of relevant employees by 30 June 2018;
• Put in place an online computerised H&S system in all 149 clubs by 30 June 2018; and
• By 30 June 2018, reduce the number of employee and customer accidents in the UK by a further 10% from their 30 June 2017 levels.

Again, positive progress has been made during 2017/18, with a completion rate of 100% for H&S awareness training by general managers, enabling them to understand and put in place club-specific risk assessments from the new generic risk assessments and safe systems of work. The new online H&S system has been put in place across the 139 UK sites and Rank also exceeded its target of reducing accidents within the UK, having achieved an overall reduction of 15% across both Mecca and Grosvenor’s venues in the year.

Diversity and inclusion

During 2017/18, the Group made significant progress in driving forward its diversity and inclusion agenda. A full diversity and inclusion strategy was agreed by Rank’s senior leadership team with the following actioned in the year:

• inaugural Women at Rank networking breakfast;
• unconscious bias training delivered to the Board and senior leadership teams with an agreed cascade to further colleagues in 2018/19;
• launch of a sponsorship programme for high-performing senior female colleagues; and
• commitment to Rank’s signature of PwC’s Hospitality, Travel and Leisure charter.

Further work will be carried out including a review of recruitment processes and existing policies to ensure Rank is attracting and retaining a diverse workforce. Focus during the year has been on gender diversity and how Rank can improve the gender balance; in 2018/19 Rank will look to extend its programme to include other minority groups.

During the year ended 30 June 2018, Rank also published its first Gender Pay Gap report which can be found at www.rank.com.

Learning and development

Across our venues, the Group delivers development programmes for both Mecca and Grosvenor Casinos through the Group’s four apprenticeship schemes.

In line with the increased focus on customer due diligence, the Group has recently delivered advanced training on enhanced due diligence across all our venues.

A significant proportion of training is made available to colleagues through eLearning courses. Nearly 11,000 colleagues participated in some form of eLearning in 2017/18 with a total of 118,000 eLearning courses completed.

Disability

Rank is committed to ensuring that people with disabilities are supported and encouraged to apply for employment with the Group and to achieve progress within the business whilst employed. Disabled persons will be treated to ensure they have equal opportunities to be selected, trained and promoted.