Employees

We know that our Employees are crucial to our success. Becoming the leader in the luxury goods industry depends on the potential, dedication, knowledge and performance of our employees and the excellence of our leaders.

Major focus areas of this approach are:

Diversity & Inclusion

We strongly believe that diversity, equity and inclusion are key to the success of our company. To be the best retail brand in Pakistan, we need the best diverse talent that reflects the diversity of our customers and consumers. We celebrate this diversity as it helps us better serve the communities we work in, while also providing a competitive business advantage.

Furthermore, we provided our employees with a platform on our intranet to support and promote dialogue around our anti-racism and anti-discrimination work. Throughout the company, we continue to support and grow our ‘Employee Resource Groups’ – these are specific networks that give employees from various walks of life a voice and serves members by fostering a diverse inclusive workplace. We now have more than 40 of these groups around the globe with different focuses on diversity dimensions such as People of Color, Women, LGBTQ+, Experienced Generation, Faith, and Disability and Mental Health. Participation in the groups is voluntary and open to all employees.

Internal communication

We believe that a robust and state-of-the-art internal communication platform is essential for driving employee engagement and fostering learning as well as open collaboration within our organization. We use an enterprise collaboration platform called ‘a-LIVE’, which brings the intranet, online collaboration platforms, and important system applications under one roof. It allows departments and teams to quickly build and edit their own internal collaboration and communication platforms and connects users across departments as well as locations. It encourages employees to share knowledge, collaborate and discuss current topics.

Health Management

We support our employees by aiming to provide the best possible conditions to ensure that they feel good and stay healthy. Our holistic approach includes people’s physical, mental, and social well-being, and focuses on four pillars: mindset, nutrition, movement and medical services.

  • Crisis management team: To be able to monitor and assess the impacts and potential spread of the coronavirus globally, we set up a dedicated Steering Committee in February. The task of this HR-led, cross-functional team is to provide guidance to our markets on emerging issues, standards and company policies to ensure alignment in the response to covid-19. The team also tracks internal covid-19 cases globally, and reports these to the Executive Board. This measure enables us to determine any actions needed at all locations globally. The Steering Committee meets up to three times per week to review employee case numbers, impacts to the business, emerging issues, and review current policies, guidelines and direction to the business and our workforce. Updates are provided to the Executive Board on a regular basis, at least twice per month.
  • HR training and alignment: To enable our HR Business Partners to report on cases, conduct contact tracing and manage any employee-related crisis issues, we introduced global trainings for our HR Business Partners. These trainings are repeated as often as necessary to ensure our partners are able to act upon the most recent developments at any time. To create alignment and awareness of new processes or emerging situations in the markets, we have also set up a weekly call for market HR leaders. In this meeting, any employee- and covid-19-related issues are discussed, and decisions are made on necessary actions.
  • Retail: In our own-retail stores, hygiene concepts encompass distancing rules and the installation of plexiglass screens. Our retail staff was trained on hygiene measures, contact tracing and case reporting to guarantee sufficient response actions to ensure the safety of all employees and customers. In addition, we created so-called ‘Retail Response Teams’ to ensure the implementation of regulations and standards in our stores.
Performance management

In 2020, we ensured that the organization has clarity regarding meaningful performance conversations while navigating the constantly changing environment. We also launched a series of global virtual events to provide practical tips and company best practice examples to all employees on impactful feedback and development conversations. To reduce the risk of potential bias in performance evaluations, we provided tools and guidance for all line managers to use when preparing for their regular Performance Standard conversations.

Travel security

With the Medical and Security Assistance Program, business travel is safer and risks are more transparent. The provider is on the spot when medical or security-related problems arise while people are travelling. Employees obtain pre-travel services, including information regarding immunization recommendations, travel medicine clinics, passports and visas, local medical facilities and special security precautions concerning their destination. Destination services include telephone medical and security advice, worldwide medication replacement and prescription transfer as well as medical and security evacuation.

 

The service provider has 24-hour alarm centers, staffed with security advisors and physicians who are trained in emergency and travel medicine. They also have a network of medical clinics globally that provide an international standard of care.

In addition, the travel data collected allows us to pro-actively inform our travelers about upcoming risk warnings, strikes or weather warnings via automatic email or text messages.

Major incident response

The company-wide Major Incident Response Policy sets out procedures and the internal and external communications needed to handle major incidents effectively. Under the lead of Human Resources, the company’s Incident Response team takes the appropriate action to minimize risks for our employees and our business at any time anywhere in the world.

Rights & rules

Royal Distributions has established standards and rules that specify the company’s responsibilities towards its global workforce.

These rights and rules are defined in the Royal Distributions Labor Rights Principles. In turn, employees must comply with the Royal Distributions Code of Conduct, which explains their duty to ensure ethical business behavior.

Labor Rights Charter

The Labor Rights Charter demonstrates the company’s commitment to the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights and is the guiding framework for several company-level policies that put our commitment into day-to day practice. These policies are related to issues such as employee recruitment, development, equal opportunities and compensation and benefits.

RD Code of Conduct

Integrity is one of the core values of Royal Distributions. All employees are expected to act with fairness and responsibility as well as in compliance with relevant laws and regulations while carrying out their tasks. In order to maintain good corporate governance, we have adopted the Royal Distributions Code of Conduct as part of our internal Global Policy Manual.

The Code is the cornerstone of ethical work behavior for our employees. It defines binding rules with respect to legally compliant and ethical behavior towards other employees, business partners and third parties, for handling information – in particular insider information – as well as for dealing with financial matters.

The Code of Conduct is supported with mandatory online training available in ten languages. This ongoing training is aimed at raising awareness of ethical and social behavior, as well as promoting compliance with data protection requirements and other policies. Every new employee is automatically invited to complete the training.

Complaints and non-compliance

To track complaints or cases of non-compliance, we have established a network of currently 20 compliance officers worldwide. In 2013 we installed a global hotline called ‘Fair Play Hotline’. With the Fair Play Hotline, our employees can submit complaints also anonymously.

Ensuring data protection

Ensuring privacy around data is an important aspect of the company’s compliance program. Our data protection system aims to ensure that personal information is handled, stored and processed according to applicable laws and internal policies globally. All employees are provided with online data protection training, and special training is given to departments that manage sensitive data, such as marketing departments.