Fiscal 2020 Integrated Report

Enhancing efficiency and promoting performance

As a services company, Sodexo recognizes that employees are central to its ability to create sustainable value.

Sodexo’s human resources strategy contributes to achieving its long-term growth objectives. It promotes empowerment, performance and accountability, anticipating resource and skill needs, investing in employee development and ensuring a safe, diverse and inclusive working environment that improves quality of life and fosters professional growth. The company’s strategy enables it to manage the identified risks for its 370,000 consumer and client-facing employees and its 50,000 managers.

A STRATEGY TO ENHANCE OPERATIONAL EFFICIENCY

To reinforce operational efficiencies and provide access to more sustainable employment, Sodexo leverages personnel management programs to connect employees with local opportunities in a huge diversity of roles offered by the company.

In response to shortages in skills and employee turnover, Sodexo helps employees develop skills through comprehensive training programs and the accelerated use of new technologies. Other initiatives include new training centers that enable people to learn new skills, increasing their employability and providing the Group with the right capabilities to deliver its services. In order to anticipate workforce needs, Sodexo implements workforce planning processes and tools.

To ensure fair employment practices (compensation, data management), Sodexo is continuously improving its processes, governance and tools, including deploying a workforce management platform.

SHAPING A CULTURE OF PERFORMANCE

A culture of performance is about differentiating employees based on their individual contribution to the business, rewarding and recognizing their achievements and identifying the talent, that will be key to shaping the future success.

To reinforce its performance culture, Sodexo launched Aspire in 2019, a simplified performance assessment and development tool for its 5 0,000 managers worldwide. Aspire links manager objectives directly with the business strategy. When combined with the KPIs from the strategic STEP⁽¹⁾ framework, Aspire allows employees to demonstrate real performance impact and contribution to business success. Progress is monitored through ongoing collaborative and constructive dialogue and feedback. As well as providing the business with an effective tool to support performance based conversations and help individuals take ownership for their own career development, Aspire provides a framework to capture important information and data, which supports succession planning and talent reviews, which in turn allows Sodexo to support the development of future leaders.

A new compensation philosophy was launched to enhance performance culture and drive ownership through a number of levers. These include salary, which is fair and competitive against internal and external benchmarks; variable pay, which differentiates based on collective and individual achievements; and longterm incentives, which promote future performance and retention.

A STRATEGY TO ANTICIPATE AND ADAPT TO FUTURE NEEDS 

The growth of the business relies on the ability to anticipate and adapt to the future needs of clients and consumers.

Through research on global trends and insights around the expected impact on clients and consumers, Sodexo is better able to adapt its resource model to meet future needs.

In the context of the Covid-19 pandemic, Sodexo’s Human Resources team is working closely with operational teams to assure it provides the relevant support to clients in all segments, both in the immediate and longer-term future.

The short-term focus is on adapting services to ensure that health and safety is prioritized within clients’ post-Covid recovery plans. For Sodexo, that means resourcing, training and upskilling employees to deliver standards and services that instill confidence and trust.

In the longer-term, Sodexo must remain agile and responsive to the needs of clients, many of whom will need to re-build and re-shape their businesses to remain competitive and successful. Sodexo also anticipates a war for talent emerging from the pandemic and that as the labor market opens, future candidates will want to work for companies that care for their employees. In line with Sodexo’s mission and genuine focus on people, the Group is well positioned to compete for future talent.

¹ STEP for Sodexo Targets for Enhanced Performance.