ESG Report 2022 single pages web - Flipbook - Page 35
COMMUNICATION AND DIRECTION
SETTING
Communication and dialogue are vital within RWS.
It includes all types of communication and consultation
between RWS colleagues on all manner of topics including
business direction and performance, operational matters,
social issues, environmental concerns, well-being and
various other areas of common interest.
This year we established a very clear rhythm of cascading
annual, quarterly and monthly communications
throughout the Group. Our RWS Hub, launched last
year, is now well established as a source of connecting
information across the business, and serves as a key
platform for systematically communicating significant
news and events relevant to the entire organisation on a
regular and reliable basis. The RWS Hub is complemented
by connected communications frameworks within
our divisions, all of which have their own established
processes for both disseminating Group-relevant
information and communicating more specific divisional
and local initiatives.
We established a new Senior Leadership Team (SLT)
early in the year and this newly created global team was
brought together at an event near London in June to
socialise and activate our strategy, purpose and values.
This was intentional, to align our most senior team first
before bringing everything to life throughout the business
under this group’s combined leadership.
Our purpose is 'unlocking global understanding'
and our values are:
Diminishing Covid-19 restrictions in many territories have
allowed us to re-establish face-to-face communications,
such as in-person town halls and small group briefings,
as a reliable channel within our communications
ecosystem. This means critical initiatives are now
communicated in a ‘blended’ format utilising both virtual
channels like the RWS Hub and our 'Inside RWS' monthly
newsletter and in-person forums to ensure the highest
levels of employee engagement and input.
Launching our new strategy, purpose and
values
During the year we developed a new strategy, purpose
and values for the Group and launched them to our
stakeholders from late March onwards.
This has been our largest single communications
and engagement programme this year and we have
been delighted with the initial response and levels of
engagement amongst our colleagues around the world.
This started with the launch of our new strategy at our
Capital Markets Day in the Spring, and immediately we
then moved the focus of our communications internally to
ensure the highest levels of understanding and emotional
buy-in across the Group.
These values – we partner; we pioneer; we progress; and
we deliver – were developed with the input of thousands of
our colleagues around the world (3,900 people completed
our values survey later in the process) and we believe they
represent a blend of our existing and aspirational culture
at RWS.
We intend for this value-set to act as a positive, reliable
point of reference for the organisation, serving as a guide
that everyone can live by in a fast-changing environment.
Feedback on this programme has been encouraging
although we know that embedding strategy, purpose
and values into the organisation fully takes time. In
FY23 we will be embedding our values into a number
of human resource processes including the launch of a
new colleague recognition scheme, a new Group-wide
performance and development review process (which
will explicitly incorporate how colleagues achieve their
objectives) and we will also ensure that alignment with the
values and leadership behaviours are considered in our
succession planning and SLT bonus programmes. In our
'voice of the customer' NPS programme we now ask our
clients whether we are living these values in the way we
work and engage with them in order to get an external
view.
SOCIAL RWS — ESG Report 2022
35
