Our Staff
We have implemented initiatives, as part of our Group operational plan, to support and encourage our staff to help us achieve our goals.
We are passionate about our culture at Games Workshop where everyone is focused on doing the right thing for the company. We are all working to ensure that we conduct our business in a safe, supportive manner. This is really important if we are to be around forever.
The people we choose to work with must also share a common set of values and beliefs and recognise that compassion towards each other and appreciation of individual efforts in a team is what helps us deliver consistent results.
Their passion for the Warhammer hobby and their ability to engage with our broad customer base is part of what makes Games Workshop so engaging and successful. Ensuring that the people who support our business are treated fairly and provided with all the necessary tools and support they need to get on with growing our business is a responsibility we take very seriously.
Health and Safety
Our Health and Safety Policy sets out that protecting the health and safety of our employees, and anyone else who could be affected by what we do, is a fundamental principle of how we do business. ‘Whatever, whenever and wherever we do things, we will do them in a safe manner’ is a statement that guides everything we do, at all levels throughout the business.
Kevin Rountree, our CEO, supported by senior management, has overall accountability for meeting these standards through the provision and implementation of appropriate policies, procedures, training, supervision, equipment and facilities. At the same time, we expect each and every employee to play their part in safety - it is the responsibility of us all to work together to both implement these standards, and to identify opportunities for improvements.
To help achieve the aims set out in the CEO's statement Games Workshop has a Health and Safety management system in which staff at all levels throughout the business understand how they contribute to that system;
Top Level Commitment: The Board, Chief Executive, and Group Directors are accountable for health and safety across the business. The Chief Executive and Group Directors must be actively involved; defining what excellence looks like and leading the way with regards to health and safety, ensuring their managers have both the necessary resources, and their full support, to effectively implement what is needed.
Management Ownership: Managers at every level are responsible for health and safety - putting into place the measures required, reviewing performance and escalating when more needs to be done to meet the standards set by the Chief Executive and the Group Directors.
Health and Safety Compliance Team: A centralised Health and Safety Team who set the requirements and standards to be met across the business, audit against those standards and provide reporting and escalation functions to ensure that issues are addressed in a timely manner by the relevant operational teams.
Health and Safety Support: Health and Safety professionals embedded within operational teams who can provide advice, support and guidance to ensure that the necessary standards are followed on a day-to-day basis.
All Staff and Non-Executive Directors: In order to be effective, all staff and non–executive directors must:
take reasonable care of themselves and others whose safety they could affect
follow established procedures and training, and ask for help or further instruction if their skill, experience, knowledge (or similar) are not adequate to do the job safely
report safety hazards promptly and in the appropriate manner
raise opportunities for improvement with their manager or other appropriate Person
Wellbeing and Support
The wellbeing and physical and mental welfare of our staff continues to be a priority. We are committed to creating a culture where talking about physical and mental health is commonplace. We will continue to work to fully embed a culture that is open and honest about mental health, working with our staff to understand their needs and build upon our strong foundations. We have a global wellbeing programme tailored to the requirements of teams in our different regions. In the UK we offer wellbeing days and have an established mental health first aid network. We also recognise that there will be times in most people’s lives, whether related to work or not, where they need additional support - in these situations we want our staff to receive the help they require wherever they are, whatever they’re doing and whenever they need it. Our global employee assistance programme provider helps us to do this more effectively. Amongst other things, access in local language through a mobile app improves accessibility for all employees, allowing our people to use this service whenever and wherever they may need it.
Diversity, Equality, and Inclusion
The board recognises that the business can benefit from a wide range of perspectives and experience and that diversity of thinking plays a role in promoting balanced decision making, through the sharing of a variety of perspectives and insight. In defining the composition of the board, the board will always meet its regulatory obligations, as well as take into consideration best practice and stakeholder expectations, while having regard to the needs of the business and one of our core principles: we look for those with the appropriate attitude and behaviour a given role requires and for those who are aligned with our principles and who are quality obsessed. All employees and non-executive directors have the opportunity to undertake unconscious bias training and this is a mandatory part of the training for all new starters. This has helped to reduce any bias which might impact our search for the best person for every job. We continue to use a broad range of advertising platforms to reach a wider pool of candidates with our recruitment process and ensure our adverts use inclusive language.
Anti-Slavery
Modern slavery is a crime and a violation of fundamental human rights. Allowing it to take place within an organisation, either consciously or through complacency, results in extensive and unnecessary suffering, often in a way that disproportionately affects groups of the most disadvantaged people. We are committed to acting ethically to implement and enforce effective systems and controls to ensure modern slavery is not taking place within our operations or supply chains.
Link to Modern Slavery Statement: https://investor.games-workshop.com/modern-slavery-act-statement
We conduct a risk assessment at least every 12 months for the purpose of monitoring compliance with anti-slavery requirements, and to ensure we have controls in place to manage any risks appropriately. In our most recent risk assessment, the areas of our business that we identified as being at an elevated risk of exposure to potential instances of slavery are licensing, buying & merchandising, distribution, and the recruitment of agency workers through our people team. The risks associated with those areas of the business stem from the risk of any failure to conduct an appropriate amount of due diligence when working with third parties - particularly in regions where instances of slavery may be more prevalent.
We use a combination of Sedex and ESCP assessment and certification to help us conduct appropriate levels of due diligence in respect of suppliers and other external parties that we work with to verify that anti-slavery and child labour controls are in place throughout our supply chain. Staff within the areas listed above undergo annual training to ensure they are aware of their responsibilities and the tools and support available to them to help manage any risks.
There were no reported breaches of our anti-slavery policies during this financial period.
Anti-Bribery & Corruption
Honesty, courage and humility are the foundations of our working culture at Games Workshop. Bribery and corrupt practices are never tolerated in the pursuit of our business objectives or relationships. This commitment is driven from the CEO, other executive directors and board throughout the entire company and the same commitment is expected of all those who work with us.
Through our most recent risk assessments, the main areas of our business that we have identified as being at an elevated risk of exposure to instances of bribery and corruption are in teams where staff conduct negotiations with third parties both domestically and internationally, licensing, buying and distribution, and in addition where we engage agency workers in our operations or third party facilities. As with child labour and slavery, the risks associated with those areas of the business mostly stem from the risk of any failure to conduct an appropriate amount of due diligence when working with third parties - particularly in regions where standards of what constitutes bribery differ to the UK. We use a combination of Sedex and ESCP assessment and certification to help us conduct appropriate levels of due diligence in respect of suppliers and other external parties that we work with to verify that anti-bribery and corruption controls are in place throughout our supply chain. These assessments are supported with annual refresher training for relevant staff to ensure they are aware of their responsibilities and the tools and support available to them to help manage any risks.
During this period there were no reported instances of bribery or corruption.