Staff Development and Retention The Group is highly reliant on the continued service of its key management and employees, who possess the necessary commercial, operational, HR, IT and financial skills that are critical to the success of the Group. The Group actively encourages the development of all our employees and has a number of programmes that can assist in achieving this at all levels in the business, including e-learning and apprenticeships. The Group’s policy and practice is to encourage the recruitment and subsequent learning, development, career development and promotion of all regardless of age, race, disability , gender, sexual orientation and according to aptitudes and abilities. Diversity and inclusion is a main priority for the Whistl Group and our Be You initiative aims to improve our already strong performance in this area. Tax Evasion The Group operates a policy as part of its efforts against tax evasion and the facilitation of tax evasion. This policy arises from compliance with the Criminal Finances Act 2017. The policy is available on the Group’s intranet, and forms part of a training programme which all employees are required to take each year. The policy applies to anyone working for any company in the Group (whether they are employees, contractors, workers or in any other form of contract). Specific provisions are also included in our contracts with suppliers. The policy and supplier provisions set out the prohibitions on engaging in any form of tax evasion or facilitating it in any way and require those working in Whistl and our suppliers to notify us if there is any form of tax evasion or facilitation of tax evasion.
Climate-related risks and opportunities At Whistl, we have integrated the monitoring of climate-related risks and opportunities into our principal risk management processes that comprise of control risk assessments, risk registers and reviews. Once we identify a climate-related risk and opportunity, we then categorise it according to Whistl’s five key risk categories:
• Strategic
• Operational
• Financial
• Compliance
• Reputational
Once categorised, we assess the size and scope of the risk or opportunity based on the severity and likelihood of each risk actualising. We score both on a scale of one to four (minor to extreme for severity, and rare to almost certain for likelihood). If the inherent risk score is beyond our acceptable risk appetite, we work to mitigate, transfer, accept or control the risk. Our Risk Management Committee evaluates, controls and updates our climate-related risks and opportunities on a regular basis as part of our Group control measures. The significance of each climate-related risk and opportunity is re-assessed following an evaluation and application of current control measures, and the resultant score is referred to as our residual risk score. Future controls and recommendations are also captured, producing a future risk score. This informs our strategic action planning.
Whistl Annual Report 2022
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