our human impact

Embracing the challenge of change

Progress on transformation is a key goal for Pick n Pay. Our priorities include the development of small businesses, particularly by empowering black- and women-owned businesses. A diverse supplier base is important in ensuring we have the variety of products to meet customer needs and become a source of innovation. A locally focused supply base is an advantage in addressing long-term food security and environmental and social challenges.

We were pleased to have improved our broad-based black economic empowerment (BBBEE) score from level 6 to level 4 BBBEE contributor status over the past year.

This improvement reflects both our continuing strong performance in the areas of enterprise and socio-economic development and total CSR contribution, and significant improvements in our scorecard on equity ownership and preferential procurement.

We are closely monitoring the gazetted and proposed changes to the scorecard and its methodology for subsequent years, which will alter the calculation and thresholds under the scorecard. We remain firmly committed to achieving further progress in this vital area.

Our social and ethics committee is responsible for determining and monitoring our transformation strategy and targets. Expenditure on BEE businesses increased by 39.2% in 2015, reaching R33.4 billion. We tripled our expenditure on black women-owned businesses, quadrupled our spend on SMMEs, and improved our preferential procurement score by 26.4%.

Our BBBEE progress

Our progress in supporting local supply and diverse suppliers

Improved tracking of these indicators during 2015 indicated that the 2014 indicators presented are understated.

Making good people great

We seek out people with the enthusiasm and aptitude to succeed in retail. We reward talent, skill with customers and commitment. We do not tolerate any form of discrimination and actively pursue employment equity.

Our key employee objectives are:

• meritocracy
• most talented SA retail business
• effective lean organisation structure
• diversity management

In the year under review, our investment in employee skills development and bursaries increased by 16.7% on the previous year. Eighty-five percent of this spend was on historically disadvantaged South Africans (HDSAs) and employees below junior management level. This year we made progress in advancing the careers of our employees, with 1 438 internal promotions.

Seventy-two point five percent of our employees in the non-management bargaining unit (NMBU), which is covered by a collective agreement with Saccawu, are union members. Fifty-four point four percent of our employees in the junior management bargaining unit (JMBU), which is covered by a collective agreement with Jamafo, are union members. Zero days were lost to protected strikes during the period.

We offer over 180 training programmes to employees, ranging from basic literacy and numeracy through to computer-based training and management and leadership programmes. We are pleased with the success of our graduate programme, which aims to develop graduates to join our leadership pipeline, and our Corporate Academy, which fast-tracks the development of a pool of managers for our stores. Our bakery learnerships and skills programmes are another success. Our leadership development programmes, accredited by formal tertiary institutions in South Africa, have been very successful in providing the business with future leaders. The Group also offers a CA(SA) training programme.

We promote workplace health and safety. Employees receive health and safety training as part of their induction and specific training is provided when required. We employ occupational health and safety practitioners who co-ordinate all health and safety activities. They provide health advice and referrals to health centres for tests, treatments and check-ups. They also assist with monitoring health hazards, co-ordinating health and safety committees, peer educators, visits and monitoring of sick employees.

We listen to, and engage with, our employees. Regular engagement with our employees helps to build their knowledge of the Group’s plans and activities, which in turn helps our staff to communicate knowledgeably with our customers. Good internal communication builds trust and loyalty and enables us to better understand and respond to our employees’ concerns.

Information contained in this report relates to Pick n Pay-owned stores only.