Sustainability

Our leadership and training opportunities, alongside initiatives to improve employee engagement are crucial for attracting and developing our people.

Recently, we launched an Accredited Leadership Diploma for senior managers, a Launch into Management programme for new and inspiring leaders and a new Performance Framework for appraisal and feedback opportunities.

“Peakon”, our employee listening tool, helps us to continually evaluate the employee experience and monitor wellbeing. Through Peakon, our people can confidentially share their views, while our managers and leaders can engage and plan improvements based on the insights shared.

In addition to diversifying our Board of Directors, we have introduced ethnic diversity and gender targets for our senior management this year. We are proud of our strong minority groups and communities across the business, including Women in Technology and Pride at Ocado and are delighted to be accredited as a supportive employer for Armed Services Veterans.

Following an audit and benchmarking process conducted in partnership with external consultancy group EY, we achieved the UK National Equality Standard certification in FY23, showing improved performance against 35 competencies.

Read more about our our approach to diversity and inclusion and explore our gender pay gap report.

We manage a number of health and safety issues. A key priority is our employees who work across our CFC and driver delivery network, given the physical nature of the work.

Our Wellbeing Programme provides proactive and reactive support to our people, including counselling and employee assistance. Recently, we designed a range of events and activities for Mental Health Awareness Week to drive visibility across the business.  

Another recent initiative is our newly formed Menopause and Fertility Policy, which was designed by leveraging an internal working group of global employees across both Technology Solutions and Logistics.

We are committed to empowering our local communities - sharing our skills and capabilities with schools, charities and organisations to create future opportunities in the world of technology.

‍Code for Life, a not-for-profit, free coding and teaching resource from Ocado Group, has received over 650,000 registrations since its inception. The initiative supports students in learning computing skills globally, and over 15,000 schools have registered.

Ocado Group's dedicated team, supported by volunteers, have built engaging games, created lesson plans and resources, onboarded teachers and learners, delivered career talks and attended career fairs and events - inspiring the next generation of technologists.

‍Read the article here or download our 2023 impact report to find out more about how our Code for Life initiative is enabling coding skills for the future.

We recognise the ever-changing threat surrounding technology and understand the crucial role a robust cybersecurity strategy plays in maintaining the trust of our clients and stakeholders.

Ocado Group has made data privacy a key priority, creating a proactive Awareness Programme to educate all employees about cybersecurity risks, introducing a dedicated security operations team to detect and respond to security incidents, and building a Vendor Assurance programme to manage third-party cyber risks.

With over 80 use cases of AI across our platform, we recognise the importance of harnessing and deploying AI in a responsible way.

To keep our employees on top of changing regulations and to future-proof our practices, we launched an internal campaign to introduce responsible AI and robotics commitments to approximately 4,000 staff members across the Ocado Group. We have also created internal resources to promote best practices. For example, specific guidance on responsible uses of Generative AI.

Find out more about our Responsible AI framework and policies, read our article.

Our policies touch on every aspect of our business and are regularly reviewed to ensure a high level of standards are upheld.

The Code of Conduct policy was updated this year, and a new communication strategy has been rolled out to all staff to enhance awareness of core compliance topics.

Recently, we launched a new Supplier Code of Conduct and Procurement Policy to drive high standards of compliance.

We have also developed a pre-qualification questionnaire for new suppliers to identify potential risks and established a mandatory onboarding process for suppliers to set accountability standards.

Download our annual statement in accordance with the Modern Slavery Act.