Our People

The Board designated Caroline Thomson as the Independent Non-Executive Director responsible for employee engagement, who has been in this role since 2017. In 2023, Caroline Thomson met with employees in Creative Solutions based at our Tedradek and SmallHD sites in the US. Feedback from the session was shared with the Board and Divisional Management and helped to shape employee engagement.

In 2023, communication to our employees was particularly important due to the substantial actions executed to help mitigate the impact of the adverse macroeconomic environment and the strikes. La Cassa Integrazione Guadagni Ordinaria (“CIGO”), the Italian government supported furlough programme, was applied in the Italian facilities of Media Solutions to mitigate the lower demand whilst ensuring employees were looked after and retained by the business. Short-time working was implemented in Creative Solutions in H2 2023 to mitigate the lower demand whilst ensuring over 100 employees were retained by the business.

We communicated with our employees regularly using multiple channels, keeping them informed of business performance at a Group and Divisional level. These took the form of emails, videos and regular all hands updates on performance and business issues from Divisional senior management and the Group Chief Executive. Following the capital raise, the Group Chief Executive also hosted Town Halls for Media Solutions’ employees in Bassano, Italy and Phoenix and Portland, US, and Production Solutions’ employees in Bury St Edmunds, UK and in Richmond, UK. 

We offer the Sharesave Scheme to all our employees in the UK, US, Italy, Germany, Costa Rica, Singapore, Japan, Australia, New Zealand and Israel. Sharesave allows employees to save a fixed monthly amount (currently up to £250) to purchase shares in the Company at a discount of up to 20% on the share price at the time of an offer.

Our Sharesave Scheme is extremely popular, with over 70% of Group employees participating in the scheme, demonstrating the close alignment between our employees and shareholders. We have specifically enhanced communication across the Group, to ensure it is well understood, and encourage as many employees as possible to participate in the scheme. Face-to-face presentations are held at sites and communications are translated into local languages. We plan to expand training to online resources for all employees to explain the process further and how to get involved.

Employee wellbeing remains a top priority for the Board. We have continuously reviewed and improved processes across the Group to look after staff, and improving colleagues’ wellbeing and mental health is important. We regularly conduct mental health and wellbeing risk assessments to review workload, intensity and support. We aim to ensure our people are engaged, motivated and looked after. We provide free or subsidised meals in staff canteens in our manufacturing sites. With employee health a top priority, our remote working framework remains extended across the Group, utilising the Microsoft Teams platform to collaborate and interact. Several of our sites, including Production Solutions, Bury St Edmunds, UK, and Cartago, Costa Rica offered flu jab clinics during the year. 

Although the majority of training was paused in 2023 due to the strikes and challenging macroeconomic environment, we aim to invest in our employees to ensure we offer them the best career development plans for their success and the success of the Company, linked to performance reviews and organisational needs. We want our employees to develop and grow. The Board reviews leadership and succession plans across each of the Divisions to ensure a structured approach to growing and developing the Company’s future leaders. We encourage interCompany recruitment between Divisions, including the Group Head Office, and offer apprenticeship programmes in many different business areas, ranging from Engineering to Business Analysis to HR. Production Solutions has launched the Hire2Develop programme. Our Media Solutions and Productions Solutions Divisions operate an appraisal system to improve personal career reviews. Creative Solutions has initiated targeted personal development programmes.

At Videndum, we are committed to Diversity and Inclusion (“D&I”) to strengthen our working environment. Due to our global footprint, we are a culturally diverse company operating across ten countries, with a workforce comprised of many different nationalities. Our D&I strategy sets out our approach and shows how we aim to embed and enhance our commitment to diversity further into our business. In 2023, although we continued to focus on gender diversity across our offices worldwide where possible and provided annual data for the Board to review, however, the headwinds faced by the Group meant that D&I became less of a focus in the second half of the year. The Board regularly reviews the issue of diversity at Board level, senior management level and throughout the entire workforce. It considers the Lord Davies’ review, Women on Boards, the Hampton-Alexander review, FTSE Women Leaders and the Parker and McGregor-Smith reviews on ethnic diversity. We are developing a “managing diversity” objective for all managers across the Group.

Our Code of Conduct sets out an express prohibition on discrimination of any kind.

Download our Diversity Policy

The health and safety of our people remains of utmost importance to Videndum. We operate to stringent standards at all Videndum sites to minimise risk. We are committed to ensuring the safety, health and welfare of all employees, contractors and others who may be affected by our activities. We continue to share best practices across the Group and have a dedicated Safety Management System and management structure for health and safety. In addition, we continue to train all staff members on safety relevant to their roles. Our Health and Safety Policy is communicated to all site management and employees and sets guidelines for adequately controlling health and safety risks arising from work-related accidents. Our Group Company Secretary and HR Director has overall responsibility for creating and implementing this policy. The policy is regularly reviewed and updated to address emerging risks. 

Our robust reporting system ensures all accidents and near misses are accounted for, whether they result in absence from work or not. We promote a culture of continuous improvement to prevent any major incidents. Our goal is to have zero significant lost time accidents. The reporting process is prompt and any accident resulting in over three days’ absence is reported to senior management and the Group Chief Executive within 24 hours.

Our five-year accident record details the number of accidents resulting in over three days’ absence, accidents resulting in less than three days’ absence and near misses from work across the Group. We continue to improve our health and safety management systems. 

Five-year accident record

However, there were two accidents resulting in over three days of absence in 2023. Each accident was subject to a detailed review to understand the root cause and to learn lessons to avoid a repeat. We aim to reduce this number in 2024.