• HEALTHY CULTURE
  • Work-life balance: the Group’s policy for flexibility at work allows up to 2 days homework weekly, in addition to flexi work and family-friendly policies in all regions. In some regions, URW encourages informal flexible working hours arrangements, and elsewhere formal agreements on flexible start and finish times are in place;
  • Since 2019, the topic of work-life balance has been included in Performance Reviews to encourage conversations with managers;
  • In 2023, a specific question relating to the definition of well-being was added to objective-setting process;
  • 80% of employees participated in the Group Employee Pulse Survey, which allows all employees to easily give feedback on topics such as well-being support and improving ways of working. Positive sentiment toward well-being at URW increased 5% from 2022 to 2023; and
  • Best practice and policies to support a positive and healthy work environment: the Group signed the Parenthood Charter in 2013. Working parents training takes place in The Netherlands, Spain, France, the UK and the US. The UK team was ranked Top 30 employers for Family Friendly Workplaces in 2023 for the seventh year running.

Gender balance succession planning in all countries (including discussions on high potentials to improve gender balance in top management); Group policy for flexibility at work (up to 2 days weekly homeworking, flexi work, family-friendly policies, support for caregiver employees); Inclusion of the URW Equal Opportunity Statement on all job descriptions, job adverts and HR people practices, and Group HR policies reviewed for language bias; Gender pay gap/workplace equality analysis results published in France, the UK and the US – updated annually. URW scored 91/100 in the French Index for Workplace Equality for 2023; Parental Leave support in all URW regions. This includes Shared Parental Leave in the UK and extended second parent parental leave beyond legal requirements in France and Sweden; In partnership with the first daycare group in France, URW offers places in daycare to French employees based on a specific number per year; In Austria, URW offers childcare vouchers for daycare or kindergarten support; US commitment to present a diverse candidate slate for open positions; and International and regional recognition: URW ranked in the Equileap Top 100 companies for gender equality – globally, as well as in the Top 10 companies in France; Top Employer awards in Germany, Austria and Central Europe (Poland, Slovakia and Czechia); Top Trainees Index named “Top Trainee” awards from Working Families Association (UK); and Finalist for “Equity, Diversity & Inclusion (EDI) Programme of the Year” award granted by Property Week in the UK; Socially Responsible Corporate of the Year awarded to Westfield London by the West London Business Awards 2024 (UK).

The People Performance Programme aims at fostering regular feedback within the Company and encouraging self-development and objective thinking all year long. The cornerstone of the programme remains a 360-degree feedback approach, now happening in June, where every employee can benefit from the evaluation of their annual performance by their direct manager and receive feedback from colleagues, direct reports (if any) and functional managers/reports (if any). The 360-degree feedback is based on the corporate values of Boldness, Excellence, Teamwork, Ethics, Passion and Ownership. Year-end reviews are carried out in a committee setting with presence of key leaders in the organisation to ensure fairness and consistency in evaluating performance cross-functionally. The programme results in an in-depth discussion of employees’ annual performance, potential for professional growth and retention. 2,048 employees have been reviewed within the People Performance Programme at the end of 2023 (scope: employees hired before September 30 on a long-term contract).

Through its Code of Ethics, URW is committed to strong ethical core values when it comes to how the Group conducts its day-to-day business in an ethical, transparent and fair manner. The Group has a "zero tolerance" principle against all forms of unethical practices, such as inappropriate, disrespectful or unlawful behaviour, harassment, discrimination, corruption, bribery, influence peddling and human rights violations. The Group's compliance policies and procedures are founded on a risk-based approach, in line with the industry and operational compliance risks. Procedures are put in place to guide URW's employees in the implementation of the policies. At URW, every employee is an ambassador of ethics and compliance values and rules. The promotion of compliance awareness through a "tone from the top" is an approach followed by the senior leadership as an acknowledgement of the important role of ethics and compliance in the Group business and to the collective commitment to do the right thing.

A European Diversity Charter has been promoted throughout the Group since 2012 to fight all forms of discrimination and harassment.

In line with its Health and Safety Statement, in cases where a near-miss or an accident took place, URW has established communication channels that allow employees to report issues and seek remedy. URW ensures open access to report accidents, near-misses, and potential instances of non-compliance and related protocols for investigation and appropriate corrective actions to the local H&S correspondent, the relevant manager or the local People teams.

URW encourages employees and third parties to report concerns, even if they turn out to be mistaken. URW has internal procedures in place to anticipate, identify and prevent any infringement on employees’ human rights and freedoms. These include, for instance, clear rules against any form of discrimination along with anti-harassment and anti-bullying practices including a whistleblowing hotline accessible 24/7 to all employees.

All employees and contractors are invited to report cases or suspicions of criminal activity, violations of national and international laws, any serious threat or harm to the general interest of URW, or breaches of the Group Code of Ethics or other internal policies, by using the Group’s whistleblowing platform, the Integrity Line. The platform is hosted by an external provider and is available 24/7 from any location worldwide in all spoken languages within the Group (https://urwintegrityline.org/). The whistleblowing platform allows anonymous reporting and ensures strict confidentiality of the identity of the reporter. The Group policy is to guarantee to not discipline, discriminate or retaliate against any employee or other person who in good faith reports information related to a violation. The Group Whistleblowing Policy has been developed to comply with articles 6, 8 and 17 of the French Law No. 2016-1691 of December 9, 2016, called “Sapin II” as well applicable data protection regulation in the relevant jurisdiction.

Employee development and learning are key areas for the Group. Action plans involving monitoring of KPIs, including the advancement of Better Places targets related to the workforce, have been designed to increase the share of women in senior management positions and build a diverse succession pipeline across the Group.

Advanced inclusion learning offer in 2023:

• A Global Allyship Programme rolled-out across all URW’s regions, including a Group 1.5-hour webinar on the key tools to build and develop a mindset of allyship, followed by a partnership with a cutting-edge digital tool focused on “eDoing” to help teams integrate allyship habits into daily work in a simple and easy way;
• Inclusion practice workshops as part of the URW Manager Programme, as well as a new e-learning module on URW’s learning platform for hiring managers to learn how to reduce unconscious bias in recruitment;
• 2 inclusion-focused Group-wide keynotes during the 2023 URW Learning Week, including the importance of creating a sense of belonging in the workplace as well as understanding different intercultural dimensions builds a stronger workforce;
• Focused intercultural learning for regional Be You at URW Network leads.

Group-wide “Supporting Inclusion at URW” unconscious bias training for employees in all regions included in newcomer onboarding; and International Graduate Programme (“IGP”) partnership with Historically Black Colleges & Universities in the US.

URW provides a decent salary to enable employees to fulfill their essential and social needs without feeling excluded. This implies affording necessary goods and services (food, housing, health care, clothing) but also education, transport, leisure and savings. URW trusts local Human Resources teams who are fully aware of local economic and legal context to determine as fairly as possible what a decent salary means. The URW remuneration policy is defined at Group level, considering these aspects.

All URW employees are covered by social protection through public programmes or through benefits offered by the Group against loss of income due to any of the following major life events: sickness, unemployment starting from when the employee is working for the Group, employment injury and acquired disability, parental leave and retirement.

All URW employees are covered by social protection through public programmes or through benefits offered by the Group against loss of income due to any of the following major life events: sickness, unemployment starting from when the employee is working for the Group, employment injury and acquired disability, parental leave and retirement.

All URW employees are covered by social protection through public programmes or through benefits offered by the Group against loss of income due to any of the following major life events: sickness, unemployment starting from when the employee is working for the Group, employment injury and acquired disability, parental leave and retirement.

All URW employees are covered by social protection through public programmes or through benefits offered by the Group against loss of income due to any of the following major life events: sickness, unemployment starting from when the employee is working for the Group, employment injury and acquired disability, parental leave and retirement.