INCLUSION & DIVERSITY – October 2021 UPDATE
We continue to work hard towards achieving our ultimate goal of being the UK’s most inclusive retailer. Here’s what we’ve been doing since our last update in July.
As part of our commitment, we’re partnering with PSALT. PSALT RISE supports us in attracting young black talent from different socioeconomic backgrounds into the FMCG industry. As part of the partnership, we’ve recently completed a successful three month Mentor Programme, where seven senior leads across the business mentored graduates from different ethnic groups and socioeconomic backgrounds.
We continue to support multi ethnic-owned businesses, both those already supplying Ocado Retail, and those wishing to supply us in the future. ADD PSALT supports us working with new suppliers.
Ocado Retail launched the 2022 Graduate Recruitment campaign in October and we’ve partnered with Diversifying. Diversifying is a careers platform for people to find jobs with employers who are serious about Inclusion & Diversity. Diversifying worked with us to co-create a recruitment marketing campaign that inspires and attracts the widest possible range of applicants.
Our team is now 22% Multi-Ethnic (3.7% Black and 18.3% made up of Asian and other Minority Heritage backgrounds). This is a 2% increase since our last update in July.
We continue to lead the way in our industry by having the most diverse leadership for minority heritage and gender with 22% being minority heritage, 57% female and 43% male.
- We’ve continually worked on improving the inclusivity of our product range. We’ve grown our Kosher range and launched Tivall and Of Tov on the website.
- We continue to represent diverse communities in our OcadoLife Magazine and a highlight was reading Melissa Thompson’s ‘Food with feeling’ article in our October issue, where she talks about her favourite comfort foods and how her upbringing (and her Grandma) heavily influenced her love of certain dishes like curry chicken.
- We created a new role that is dedicated to Inclusion & Diversity. This role focuses on partnering with our internal networks, building relationships with external partners and executing our Inclusion & Diversity strategy that will drive us to our ultimate goal.
If you have any questions or suggestions, please feel free to reach out to us by emailing us at diversity@ocadoretail.com
Thank you,
Mel Smith CBE, CEO, and everyone in the Ocado Retail family.