
33
GENUS PLC / Annual Report 2024
STRATEGIC REPORT
Once they have joined, we help
colleagues keep developing throughout
their career with Genus. Sources of
support include bespoke leadership and
management programmes, individual
development plans and on-demand
courses. Each year, we review and expand
these resources. We also offer a CEO
Scholarship, providing one colleague
with funding for a part-time or online
leadership programme. The recipient of
this year’s Scholarship has now begun an
MBA through the University of Wisconsin.
Every employee also completes annual
mandatory training, including modules
on the Genus Code of Conduct and
role-specific health and safety topics.
Benchmarking pay and benefits
We continue to offer a competitive
compensation package to colleagues
around the world. We monitor this by
conducting rigorous benchmarking of local
pay against practices in each market.
We are also committed to providing a
broad range of benefits that support
employees with different needs or
interests, and helping colleagues in all
areas of the company understand them.
Strengthening our support
During the year, we enhanced the
effectiveness and increased the efficiency
of support for employees around the
world. For example, we set up a Centre
of Excellence for Organizational and
Talent Development, to ensure a
consistent global approach to learning
and development, performance
management, employee engagement
and succession planning. We also
streamlined and simplified our payroll
and other shared services support.
Managing change
During the year, Genus made operational
and structural changes to help us with
the next stage of our development.
We treated the colleagues impacted
with dignity and respect, in line with
our values, providing a wide range
of support (including outplacement
assistance). We also helped colleagues
remaining with us to transition to new
structures or ways of working.
Prioritising zero harm
Our aim is to achieve zero harm across
our organisation, so that colleagues
can carry out their work without injury.
To help us pursue this aim, we are
constantly exploring and acting on
any opportunities to enhance health,
safety and mental wellbeing.
Evolving our culture
We nurture an inclusive, responsible
and safe culture, collaborating
effectively and supporting each other
as we pursue our shared vision and
strategy. The cornerstone is our set of
core values. These were developed 13
years ago, so we refreshed them this
year using input from a diverse range
of colleagues around the world, as
explained in the case study on page 34.
We are now embedding the refreshed
values into our people processes.
Our global employee handbook sets
out the expectation that all Genus
employees will align with these values
and follow our policies and practices.
In addition, our employee resource group
AWAKE (Advancing Women’s Advocacy,
Knowledge and Empowerment) is helping
us strengthen efforts to enhance gender
inclusion through coaching, leadership
training and networking sessions. This
year’s programme included events
involving our Non-Executive Directors
Lesley Knox and Lysanne Gray.
Enhancing engagement
In November, we ran our employee
engagement survey, Your Voice, to
seek employee feedback on working at
Genus and ideas for improvement. We
achieved a record response rate of 87%,
with contributions from more than 3,000
colleagues. Among the highest-scoring
areas were understanding of our vision
and strategy, health and safety and
experience of working at Genus. We also
identified areas in which we could improve,
including talent retention and supporting
our managers to be the best people
leaders they can be. Our businesses and
functions are now implementing practical
action plans, while our executive team
has identified Group-wide priorities on
which we are placing particular emphasis.
Attracting and developing talent
We have continued to attract top talent
in what remains a highly competitive
labour market. For example, our early-
stage career opportunities – including
internships, trainee schemes and
graduate programmes – brought in 52
new colleagues. We are also embedding
the refreshed values into our recruitment
process, to help us attract talent
aligned with our culture and vision.
For example, while we already provide a
detailed and multi-channel programme
of health and safety training for
colleagues around the world, we are
always looking for opportunities to
expand or improve it. This has included
delivering targeted in-person training
for colleagues in higher-risk roles to
help them understand and manage
hazards they may come across. We also
increased our focus on leading indicators,
including the importance of reporting
any ‘near misses’ and ‘observations’ so
we can learn from them and reduce any
associated risks. In FY24 we increased the
numbers of near misses and observations
reported by 50% on the prior year.
Such activities helped us continue to
reduce injuries during the year. Our
recordable injury frequency rate for
the year was 2.00 incidents per 100
employees; this was lower compared
to prior year and in line with our
target of a 5% reduction year on year
(which we established four years ago).
We also reduced vehicle incidents by
19.61% compared to the previous year,
surpassing our 5% reduction target.
Routes for raising concerns
Colleagues in any part of our company
can raise any concerns about unethical
behaviour through several routes.
These include an independent and
anonymous hotline (which supports
our whistleblowing policy), which is
offered in different languages and
different telephone numbers.
Any reports are immediately referred to
the Group General Counsel and Company
Secretary. They are investigated and
discussed with the Group HR Director,
Head of Risk Management, Internal
Audit and the company’s Audit & Risk
Committee. This process is regularly
reviewed as part of our annual
Audit & Risk Committee activity.
Human rights
Genus is committed to respecting the
human rights of workers throughout our
value chain and the local communities in
which we operate. We aim to ensure that
anyone who might be affected by Genus
can enjoy the human rights described
in the International Bill of Human Rights
and the ILO Declaration on Fundamental
Principles and Rights at Work.
We monitor this through the same
process used for the policies
outlined earlier and there were no
issues identified during the year.