Corporate responsibility

People & community

People

We are committed to delivering programmes and providing opportunities that help create attractive and rewarding places to work and help Whitbread become the Employer of Choice.

With more than 33,000 employees, mainly in the UK, we have a range of policies covering such issues as diversity, employee well-being and equal opportunities.

Focus on training

Great emphasis is placed on improving the skills, expertise and performance of employees through a continuous programme of training and development. Training programmes address skills development across all levels.

Employee involvement

We are committed to listening to and involving our employees and believe that open and regular two-way communication at all levels is an essential part of the management process. All employees are asked their opinions via an annual 'Your Say' survey and specific plans are put in place to address feedback from these surveys.

Employee well-being

Because the well-being of our employees is extremely important to us, all employees and their immediate families are provided with access to the Whitbread Employee Assistance Programme. This offers a round-the-clock, confidential counselling service.

Flexible working

We are developing flexible employment packages as an incentive to attract and retain good people and acknowledge that flexible working opportunities benefit everyone - employers, employees and their families.

Code of Conduct

The Group's Code of Conduct is widely briefed to employees on a regular basis and sets out the high standards of integrity expected from our people.

Community

Whitbread has been actively involved in the community for many years. Today, our community investment programme focuses on:

• providing financial and in-kind support to employees and the charities close to their hearts;
• investing in countries and communities that are an integral part of Whitbread's business; and
• building strong and mutually beneficial charity partnerships.

We support our people in their volunteering and fundraising activities through the match-funding and payroll giving schemes and, with 16% of employees donating to their favourite good causes, Whitbread has been recognised with a Gold Award as part of the Government's Payroll Giving Quality Mark scheme.