Social

Socio-Economic Compliance

Having operations in 64 countries also means complying with different national and supranational regulations. For this reason, from a global perspective, Dufry’s position towards regulations necessarily needs to go beyond the compliance and statutory requirements of the norms and have a more holistic and ample approach. In this regard, Dufry has a number of initiatives and control mechanisms in place that permit the company to monitor and ensure compliance with national and international laws and follow respective ethical standards.

Supplier Social Assessment  

Dufry is aware of its responsibility beyond its own direct activities and strives to ensure that suppliers of goods and services behave responsibly towards society and the environment. To ensure this, Dufry expects suppliers and business partners to comply with the law, stipulated contract conditions and international best practices in respect of human rights, the environment, health and safety as well as labor standards. In this context, in 2017, Dufry has developed a new Supplier’s Code of Conduct, which is currently being implemented in relation to Dufry’s largest as well as new suppliers.

Caring about our Employees

We encourage our employees to work together with a focus on our customers, our partners and our company’s goals every day. We take pride in the professionalism of our teams, their outstanding commitment to first-class service to our customers, their team spirit and the close collaboration with our business partners. This builds a strong base for Dufry’s continuing success and makes Dufry a unique place to work and partner with.

Dufry offers attractive working environments, interesting tasks, fair and competitive wages, and a general working atmosphere based on mutual respect and appreciation for each individual. We foster employee development by supporting a broad range of in-house as well as external training and development opportunities.

We also strongly believe that regularly planning the next career steps together with an individual employee is an important aspect to a long-term, successful employer-employee relationship. Therefore it is important for us to build a constructive dialogue between each individual employee and manager on goals, priorities and personal development. Our staff members receive an annual performance review aimed at evaluating the performance and identifying further personal development potential for next career steps. 

Having grown to an organization with over 29,000 employees worldwide

In the past four years, our workforce has increased by 82% from 16,423 employees at the beginning of 2014 to 29,879 people (FTE) by the end of 2017. The two acquisitions of Nuance in 2014 and World Duty Free in 2015 and their timely integrations have not only changed our footprint in the market and have made Dufry the undisputed market leader in travel retail; they have also meant a lot of transformation and integration in terms of our human resources projects. 

Overall, our total workforce remained stable during 2017 with 29,879 people (FTE) working for the group at December 31, 2017 compared to 28,848 at year-end 2016. 

Dufry’s unique cultural diversity

Our workforce comprises colleagues from more than 70 nationalities across all functions and Divisions. This has been a consistent situation for many years and we continue to believe that this broad cultural diversity represents a unique competitive advantage. We also view it as a key element in the successful development of our Group and in the implementation of our long-term growth strategy. 

The staff in each country is to a high extent local people.

For our employees, it creates a truly international working environment with colleagues from across the world and interesting career opportunities. The staff in our local shops in each country is to a high extent local people. Dufry’s know-how on operating local businesses in 64 countries around the world make us a strong job creator in a large number of cities, many of them being located in emerging markets, thus contributing to local development and wealth beyond the community engagement projects. 

Roll-out of the new HR information system across the Group

The new Human Resources information system “Dufry Connect” is supporting HR and line managers to place additional focus on people management activities, enabling greater automation and solid interface to manage people, development and careers at Dufry. The system implementation was completed in 2016 for the Global functions and in key operations in the Divisions during 2017, with more locations to be added during 2018. As a result, we expect a major efficiency impact on the employee management processes. Another key improvement is related to the learning management platform: The new learning platform comprises all Dufry learning programs and enables training paths by employee role, easily accessible worldwide.

Talent Management

Dufry ensures that future and long-term management needs are being addressed by an optimal balance of promoting internal high-level personnel and hiring external talents (for example in new countries where we start operations). Dufry operates a global, systematic  integration process to identify high-potential talents in the organization and to develop them toward the key roles in our business model.

The talent pipeline

We strongly believe that talent management and succession planning are ongoing processes. Accordingly, we keep enhancing the pipeline of candidates ready for the key managerial roles and we carry out yearly reviews of the quality of our talent pipeline at two levels:

The first level concentrates on a limited number of candidates that will be able to occupy one of the pre-defined key positions in our entire organization. At year-end 2017, this pool of talents included 74 high-potential managers. We trust that with these managers, we are able to address and safeguard the succession in specific key management position. 

The second level focuses on our stores. Within the top-performing stores’ personnel and supervisors, we have identified 397 “Retail talent” employees as of year-end 2017, on whose development we will focus in order to ensure a quality store management succession pipeline. 

Training and professional development

Dufry carries a strong Learning and Development portfolio, both at the local and global level. As for global programs, our flagship initiatives are “Dufry Sales Academy” and “Step Ahead”, with which we strive to consistently provide our professionals with the tools, knowledge and capabilities they need to perform well in their jobs and develop to their full potential at Dufry.

The Dufry Sales Academy learning program includes two sub-programs: Out in Front and Dufry + 1 both national award winning programs. Out in Front was launched in 2012 and is a dedicated program for our sales professionals, shop managers and supervisors in the retail operation. At the start of 2017, Out in Front was running in 47 countries and has been expanded to 57 countries by year-end 2017. The learning program is being implemented across all WDF operations and a total of 357 retail managers were educated at Dufry, Nuance and WDF locations in 2017.

In 2017 we completed delivery of our integrated Dufry + 1 program to 7,300 team members, out of which 6,000 were from World Duty Free retail operations. We continued to educate new shop floor hires on our Dufry + 1 program across the entire Group in 64 countries. 

The experimental learning format of both programs, Out in Front and Dufry + 1, is delivered by a Dufry Certified Trainer. The number of trainer certificates increased by 193 at year-end 2017.  

Step Ahead includes two avenues, one focused on management skills and the other on our operational business processes, procedures & tools. Managers running important segments in our value chain, such as commercial, logistics, procurement, marketing and retail operations, partake in these various learning offerings to achieve company performance outcomes and run the company according to the Group’s performance expectations. 

The Management Skills avenue launched in 2013 provides our managers with a formal education allowing them to assess their current capabilities and improve their role as a manager of teams. In 2017, 4,049 managers participated in our formal sessions covering several topics from the Step Ahead Management Skills suite. 

In the Step Ahead Operational avenue we educated 49 managers from various functions in 2017.  

Equal employment 

Dufry fosters a culture of equal opportunity. Our HR policy is to provide equal employment conditions and to offer career opportunities without discrimination to all our employees. We offer and promote working environments where everyone receives equal treatment, regardless of gender, color, ethnic or national origins, disability, age, marital status, sexual orientation or religion. In addition, we adhere to local legislation and regulations in all the countries were we operate. Any kind of child labor or forced labor is strictly forbidden and clear recruitment procedures and regular workplace controls ensure that this never happens at any location.

Anti-discrimination, diversity and ensuring equal opportunities are and have always been important social and corporate issues for Dufry across all locations, especially (but not exclusively) in developing countries. Many locations in which the Group operates still pose challenges to guarantee equality. We monitor those countries closely to ensure we provide equal opportunities to all our staff. 

We provide our employees with fair and competitive wages based on an individual’s background and experience, the particular job within our organization, the appropriate market benchmark in the respective countries and locations as well as her / his performance. 

We assess the remuneration structure of our employees on a regular basis to make sure there is no discrimination related to any kind of diversity. In this context, we also proactively engage with our women employees in an internal forum – Women@Dufry – where we discuss today’s challenges of women at the work place in order to make sure that our female employees can fully develop their potential and career opportunities within the company. The forum is attended by selected female representatives of the company, HR management and is sponsored by the CEO.

Freedom of Association and Collective Bargaining

Dufry respects legally recognized unions and internal forums created to represent their employees’ interests. The Company’s policy on collective agreements is tailored to each location in which it operates, as each location is subject to its own specific laws and regulations. As an example, the current practice in some of the main Group operations is described below: 

• In Brazil, there is a collective agreement in place which covers core employee related topics such as salary reviews, general allowances (meal, transport, benefits, etc.), work contract restrictions / special conditions, work shifts, vacations, health and safety, contributions, gratifications, awards and requirements aiming employee’s guarantees. 
• Greece also has a collective agreement in place ruling the main employee topics.
• In Spain, Dufry has a collective agreement in place that covers all employees in that location except the senior management. The agreement is negotiated between the Company and a committee made up of employee representatives and labor union members and outlines conditions such as salary, holiday days and health and safety in the workplace, among other human resources related matters
• In the UK, Dufry has an employee forum – “Voice” – made up of staff representatives. This forum was created as a partnership between the company´s management and employees to influence and communicate business change.
• In the US, there are a number of recognized trade unions that Dufry engages with, including Unite Here, Workers United, United Food and Commercial Workers, Teamsters, Newspaper Guild, Culinary Workers.

Dufry World – The internal news magazine for our employees 

Dufry regularly reports on important news in its corporate-magazine “Dufry World”, which is published in 5 languages. This ensures that important trends in the travel retail industry and developments of our Group are communicated to our staff members in full. Every issue of the magazine also portraits individual employees or teams and their personal stories within Dufry’s global environment and within the Dufry family. Dufry World is issued 4 times per year. During 2017, we inaugurated a new section called “Wall of Fame” to pay tribute to individuals that have gone beyond the extraordinary either in their personal or in their professional lives, leading by example to the rest of the Dufry employees.

In addition, all internal and external information is also made available in Dufry’s intranet “Dufry Gate”. In 2016, the communication channel of Dufry Gate was transformed into a fully responsive online news channel called “mygate” thus considerably extending the reachability of additional employee groups in our locations. Mygate can easily be accessed from desktop workstations as well as through mobile devices. 

Awards programs – fully integrated during 2017

Employee recognition is an important way to value employees’ and team achievements. With this is mind, Dufry created the Dufry One Awards, a global award recognizing locations globally, which have taken initiatives to actively improve sales, efficiency or performance contributing to Dufry’s ambition of continuous growth and improvement. The winners of the 2017 awards were announced in May and published in the employee corporate magazine, Dufry World, as well as in the news section of the company´s intranet, Dufry Gate.

The Performance Award – A global award recognizing locations globally, which have taken initiatives to actively improve sales, efficiency or performance contributing to Dufry’s ambition of continuous growth and improvement. The 2017 awards went to:

• Division 1 – Antalya Airport, Turkey
• Division 2 – Edinburgh Airport, United Kingdom
• Division 3 – Bali Airport, Indonesia
• Division 4 – Dufry Cruise Services, Norwegian Cruise Line (NCL) Jewel 
• Division 5 – San Francisco International Airport, USA 

The Customer Service Award – Open to all shops participating in the global Mystery Shopper program, recognizes individual shop performance across the specific customer impact segments of the Mystery Shop. The winners of the 2017 awards were:

• Athens International Airport, Greece – Victoria’s Secret Store
• Antalya Airport, Turkey – Suncatcher Store
• Newark Liberty Airport, USA – Dufry Shop
• Gatwick South, United Kingdom – World Duty Free Main Shop
• Zurich, Switzerland – Lindt Store

The Best Initiative Award – A global award to recognize individuals or teams that have demonstrated proactivity, taking initiative to solve a challenge, increase sales or improve customer service. The 2017 awards went to:

• Division 1 – Athens International Airport in the Intra Schengen Area, Greece
• Division 2 – United Kingdom
• Division 3 – Singapore
• Division 4 – HR team in Uruguay
• Division 5 – Chicago O´Hare Airport team, USA 

Employee engagement

Measuring employee engagement and satisfaction through regular surveys is an important tool to recognize potential for improvements across the Group. Our employee surveys are done systematically over specifically defined cycles: we ensure that the surveys always involve a substantial part of our more than 32,000 employees, and that they are carried out across the world, involve all Divisions as well as the headquarters; and, that over a certain timespan, all employees have been involved in a survey. Applying this system results in regular surveys focusing on the action plans

Excellent response and engagement rates in employee survey.

In 2016, we organized a global employee engagement survey which included over 28,000 employees; in this survey most of the WDF employees participated too. Over 60 countries across all five Divisions completed the survey with an overall response rate of 69 %. The engagement rate was 61 %, both of which are excellent rates compared to the overall benchmark of the survey system we use. During 2017, team leaders across Dufry have shared specific results of the survey with their teams and co-worked in putting together action plans to improve engagement. The next survey is expected to be carried out in the second half of 2018.

Health and safety

The health and safety of our employees is a top priority at Dufry. We ensure work place safety additionally by regular learning and training courses, among them in fire safety and first aid to provide for the prevention and quick, correct reaction in cases of emergencies.

Dufry strives to achieve high occupational Health & Safety standards and actively encourages compliance across the whole Group and among all its business partners and sub-contractors. The majority of our workforce operates in airport and cruise-ship environments, where employees have to comply and follow the respective airport’s, seaport’s or vessel’s safety regulations. As a result, Dufry has a number of different Health & Safety Policies throughout the organization. Regardless of the specific requirements of each local legislation, there are certain principles that all these policies adhere to, including:

• Adherence to country, state and local Health & Safety legislation and any other requirements
• Workplaces as safe and hazard-free spaces
• That employees have the necessary skills and training to perform their duties
• That employees have been informed of the contents of the policy
• That all the elements and protective equipment required for employees to carry out their job safely have been provided
• That the Group has procedures in place in case of emergency

In 2017, for the second year running, World Duty Free has been awarded by the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (UK) the RoSPA Gold Award for having achieved a high level of performance underpinned by good occupational health and safety management systems and culture, which are delivering consistent improvement; www.rospa.com/awards/winners/2017/gold-awards/.

Security practices

Due to the nature of our business, most of our staff is in the airport environment, either working in stores, in airport offices and or in airport warehouses. As part of that airport ecosystem, our staff has to adhere and follow the security principles and processes established at the airport where our stores are located. Most of these regulations and policies are harmonized across the world to ensure consistent levels of safety and consumer protection. Worldwide safety regulations are set by the International Civil Aviation Organization and within Europe by the European Aviation Safety Agency.

In order to work in our stores, member of our staff need to obtain the corresponding airport authorization, which in most of the cases implies training courses on security measures and procedures in the airport environment.