DIVERSITY
Cranswick recognises the benefits of bringing together a wide variety of backgrounds and experiences and is pursuing the development of a diverse workforce that is representative of all sections of society. Our Group Diversity Policy requires that all appointments, including recruitments and internal promotions, are based on merit, qualification and abilities, and are not influenced or affected by race, colour, nationality, religion or belief, gender, marital status or civil partnership, family status, pregnancy or maternity, sexual orientation, gender reassignment, disability or age. The policy applies at all levels across the Group, including the Board and its Committees. Our recruitment practices are designed to eliminate bias and discrimination, which includes how and where we recruit colleagues and ensuring our recruitment materials and interview practices are inclusive.
The Committee considered ethnic diversity in relation to senior management positions and recognises that our current team and their immediate reports are not ethnically diverse, and we are, therefore, not in a position to set meaningful ethnic diversity targets based on our existing succession pipeline. Over the longer term, this is being addressed through our recruitment and graduate programme supplemented by external recruitment. The Group is taking steps to address this and to encourage an inclusive culture via our ED&I Committee, ensuring race equality is embedded into our vision, mission, values and business plan, which will support the development of a more diverse senior management team. During the year, Cranswick became a signatory of the Race at Work Charter, an initiative by Business in the Community (‘BITC’) committing us to various initiatives that will promote diversity and inclusion within the workplace. The Charter represents a significant step towards creating fairer and more inclusive workplaces, ensuring that all employees have equal opportunities to succeed.
In March 2025, the UK Government launched a consultation on introducing mandatory ethnicity and disability pay reporting for companies such as Cranswick. The consultation follows a commitment made by the UK Government last year to extending mandatory pay gap reporting beyond gender. As indicated last year, while the Group has historically collected data relating to its workforce by reference to nationality, over the course of 2024/25 we have introduced a new HR system across the Group’s sites that enables the capture of ethnicity data across the workforce, which it is anticipated will enable ethnicity pay gap reporting to be undertaken on a voluntary basis from 2025/26 and any subsequent government reporting requirements. This will also enable us to identify any structural and cultural barriers that may be contributing to workplace inequalities. We have also had a greater focus on diversity in our staff surveys to gain a greater understanding of colleagues’ opinions and have introduced compulsory diversity, equality and inclusion training to underpin our commitment to increasing our diversity. Recent results have shown a 2 per cent increase in our ED&I score on the 2024 Staff Survey.
The gender breakdown of the Group’s workforce is set out on page 112. The proportion of females overall remained broadly unchanged over the last 12 months. We recognise we need to do more to ensure a better gender balance and are addressing this through the introduction of more flexible working practices, provision of enhanced maternity pay, standing by our commitments in our Gender Pay Gap report and working closely with external organisations providing support, development and mentoring opportunities to female colleagues, further details of which are set out on pages 53 to 57 of the Strategic Report.
Our sector has historically had low levels of ethnic and female participation in management in the geographic regions in which we operate. While we have been actively taking steps to promote greater diversity, including through our recruitment and our graduate programme, this represents a longer-term approach, which will result in improvement over time as careers develop and our colleagues move into more senior management positions. We have also explained on page 57 of the Strategic Report various further measures we are undertaking to encourage diversity, which apply across the Group at all levels, including senior management.
Details of Board and executive management diversity are set out at the end of this report in accordance with Listing Rule requirements. The Listing Rules also require that companies explain where they do not meet the following targets:
- At least 40 per cent of the Board are women.
- At least one senior Board position (Chair, Chief Executive, Senior Independent Director, Chief Financial Officer) is a woman.
- At least one Board member is from an ethnic minority background.
Cranswick does not meet the target relating to women on the Board (33 per cent of the Board are women). While we have made significant progress over recent years in relation to diversity on the Board and other senior positions across the Group, we recognise that there remains more to achieve.
The Nomination Committee considers that diversity can strengthen the Board and that it is important that the Board is not made up exclusively of like-minded individuals with similar backgrounds. While management appointments will continue to be made on the basis of merit, without the adoption of specific diversity targets, the Group recognises the potential benefits of a more diverse management and has a policy of increasing diversity at all levels. The Board remains mindful of the need to promote wider forms of diversity when considering future appointments to the Board and
Senior Management.
Successful delivery of the Group’s strategy and planned growth depends on the recruitment and retention of a motivated and skilled workforce in an increasingly competitive and mobile labour market. The Board recognises that broadening diversity to ensure that our workforce is more reflective of society maximises our available talent pool and the attractiveness of a career with the Group both at a senior level and more generally.
Our Gender Pay Gap report's can be found below:
