RWS Annual Report 2022 web - Flipbook - Page 61
BOARD ENGAGEMENT WITH STAKEHOLDERS
The Board is committed to enhancing engagement
and seeks to build honest, respectful and transparent
relationships with all of the Company’s stakeholders. As
with other large and complex companies, the Directors
fulfil their duties partly through a governance framework,
which delegates day-to-day decision making to the
Executive Directors and, within defined levels of costs and
impact, divisional leadership teams. The Board recognises
that such delegation needs to be much more than simple
financial authorities and it covers areas such as risk, ethics
and new sector or country approaches.
•
Unscheduled Board and Committee meetings if the
Board needs to be informed of matters, or when a
decision is required before scheduled Board meetings –
such as Covid-19 developments, trading updates, bids or
M&A opportunities.
•
Regular briefings from Executive Directors, senior
management and subject matter experts, which
include details of engagement with stakeholders,
strategy, performance, local market and competitor
positions, operational and colleague matters, and client
satisfaction and business development.
•
A rolling agenda of matters which are considered by the
Board and Committees throughout the year, including
a strategy review which considers the purpose of the
Company and the strategy to be followed by the Group,
supported by a budget for the following year and a
medium-term financial plan.
•
Formal consideration of large bids, acquisitions,
refinancing, share buybacks, dividends and
other matters, including any factors which are relevant
to major decisions taken by the Board through the year,
in line with the Delegation of Authority and Terms of
Reference for each Board Committee.
•
Regular reports and presentations at scheduled Board
and Committee meetings, including operational reports
presented by the Chief Executive Officer, and updates
from the Chief Financial Officer and other senior
management on a range of matters including:
The risk management process and other routine Audit
Committee and Remuneration Committee agenda items,
as described later in this report on pages 80 to 83 and
84 to 91 respectively.
•
Feedback from colleagues through responses to the
annual RWS engagement survey. More details are
provided on this below.
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Strategy
•
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Financial
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Treasury and tax matters
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Approach to ESG
A focused approach to client engagement through
both face-to-face visits with our significant enterprise
clients, and the addition of ‘voice of the customer’
programme insights, tabled at Board meetings.
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Health, safety and well-being
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Assurance and controls
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Risk, ethics and compliance
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Cyber security
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Colleague matters (including colleague
engagement, workforce and management diversity,
gender pay gap, workforce remuneration and
related policies)
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Markets
The governance structure, which covers the values and
behaviours expected of our colleagues, the standards
to which they must adhere, how we engage with
stakeholders, and how the Board looks to ensure that we
have a robust system of control and assurance processes,
is designed to drive high standards of business conduct
across the Group.
Our Environmental, Social and Governance ("ESG")
framework is structured around our key stakeholders, and
the Board has continued to focus on our approach to and
progress in delivering our ESG commitments.
In addition to the methods of engagement described
over the following pages, the interests of our stakeholder
groups are considered by the Board through a
combination of:
•
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Operational performance
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Suppliers
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Community
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Environment
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Client and investor feedback
The Board also engages with stakeholders through news
releases and stock exchange announcements on a wide
range of matters, including regular trading updates,
half-year and full-year results reports and accompanying
presentations, changes to the Board, key leadership
appointments, material shareholdings, refinancing and
corporate transactions, acquisitions, contract awards and
losses, and operational updates from across the Group.
These news releases and stock exchange announcements
drive ad hoc engagement with stakeholders and are
available on the Company’s website.
Details of the Group’s key stakeholders, their key
concerns, and how the Board engages with them are set
out on the next pages.
STRATEGIC REPORT RWS — Annual Report 2022
61
