OUR PEOPLE

2023 PROGRESS

People are central to everything we do. It is critical that we safeguard people against human rights risks, proactively support them, and help their communities to thrive. Protecting the human rights of everyone connected to our business, and ensuring they are valued and empowered, is critical to our long-term growth.

PROGRESS IN 2023

Completed a human rights due diligence (HRDD) gap analysis
Women occupied 31% of leadership and management roles, up from 29% in 2022
Conducted a Living Wage baseline assessment
Developed a robust remediation action plan with James Finlay Kenya (now Browns Plantations Kenya)
Set up a women’s committee in Casa Fuentes, Argentina
Continued to strengthen Finlays’ Women in Business networks

HUMAN RIGHTS DUE DILLIGENCE GAP ANALYSIS AND ACTION PLAN

In the second half of 2023, Partner Africa conducted a human rights due diligence (HRDD) gap analysis exercise on James Finlay Limited that included a documentation review and interviews with senior leaders. This has helped the business better understand our current management capacity, reflect on our existing activities, and identify gaps in our approach to human rights.

A key finding to emerge from the exercise was that there are numerous signs of ad-hoc human rights activities at Finlays, but they are not yet systematized. Finlays’ approach to managing human rights was considered developing, or at ‘emerging’ level.

We have shared and discussed the findings and recommendations of the gap analysis with key internal stakeholders, and developed an action plan to start embedding HRDD processes in 2024 and beyond.

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REPORTING ON OUR PEOPLE
Employee data

Country	Total Number of Employees	Number of Male Employees	Number of Female Employees
Argentina	336	300	36
China	34	18	16
Indonesia	2	1	1
Kenya	5,706	3,968	1,738
Malawi	3	2	1
Sri Lanka	235	193	42
United Arab Emirates	6	4	2
United Kingdom	403	259	145
United States of America	248	153	95
TOTAL 2023	6,973	4,898	2,076
TOTAL 2023 (following sale of JFK)	1,795	1,346	450

Note: This data covers the headcount of permanent and fixed-term employees of Finlays as at the end of December 2023. We have included employee figures from James Finlay Kenya, which were correct at the end of November 2023, when it was sold to Browns Plantations. Finlays’ HR team has been working to improve and align the employee data across all our businesses to ensure definitions and methodologies are consistent. Through this project we are increasing the data being collected in a phased way, enabling us to deliver a full suite of people data and insights by the end of 2025.

REPORTING ON OUR PEOPLE
Health & Safety

Creating a proactive safety culture

2023 saw the launch of ‘Always Safe’, our new health and safety strategy. Through ‘Always Safe’ we are shifting our culture and mindset away from an absence of incidents toward the presence of safety. We are doing this through leading indicators such as the ‘Safe Day Initiative’, which involves measuring and reporting the number of ‘safe days’ at each site every month. Sites must meet four proactive safety criteria, such as a safety communication or safety improvement, to record a ‘safe day’. We started implementing this shift in 2023 through training across the business.

We will continue to embed it in 2024 to grow a proactive approach to workplace safety that supports greater ownership and a positive safety culture.

REPORTING ON OUR PEOPLE
Health & Safety Data

^{Both fatalities occurred in the Kenya Tea Estates (JFK) and both involved self-propelled harvesters (SPHs). The first when a child from a local village climbed onto the moving tracks and got entrapped; the second when a security guard elected to have a sleep in a harvesting area and was run over by an SPH. Both incidents were thoroughly investigated and actions implemented to prevent recurrence.}
^{JFK was sold in November 2023 and is no longer part of James Finlay Ltd. Data is shown both with and without JFK to enable comparison with past data in 2022 and future data in 2024, while also demonstrating that JFK had a significant adverse impact on group safety performance data in 2023. The ‘Excluding JFK’ column has removed the JFK 2022 data to enable a more accurate YOY comparison.}
^{2023 saw the launch of a revised H&S ‘Always Safe’ Strategy which focuses more on leading indicators than lagging, so both the hazard report closure rate and the safe day attainment rate have been included.}
^{LTI frequency and severity rates are calculated per 200,000 hours worked, which equates to 100 people working 40 hours a week for 50 weeks of the year. This is a recognized H&S standard.}

Performance Indicator	2022	Including JFK		Excluding JFK
Performance Indicator	2022	2023	(vs 2022)	2023	(vs 2022)
Fatalities	0	2	+2	0	=
Lost time injuries (LTI)	26	53	+27	10	-4
LTI frequency rate	0.35	0.69	+0.34	0.31	-0.08
Lost working hours	3311	3,757	+446	1,294	-165
LTI severity rate	44.18	49.06	+4.88	39.72	-4.08
Minor injuries	115	49	-66	47	-67
Hazard reports raised	52,437	40,405	-11,032	4,417	-5603
Hazard reports closed	47,333	32,273	-15,060	3,647	-4425
Hazard report closure rate	92%	80%	-12%	83%	+2%
Safe Day attainment rate	N/A	57%	N/A	50%	N/A

REPORTING ON OUR PEOPLE
Women in management

In 2023 women occupied 31% of leadership and management roles at Finlays, a 2.7% increase compared with 2022.

Following the sale of James Finlay Kenya in November 2023, we recalculated our figures. This showed that the percentage of women in management roles at the end of 2023 stood at 35%. We have therefore updated our targets and are now working toward women occupying 39% of our management roles by 2027. Previously, our target was 35%, which we had already met with our new baseline.

As part of our Sustainable Future 2030 strategy, Finlays remains committed to supporting and progressing female representation at all levels of management. To continue our good progress, we are examining all aspects of the HR life cycle through a gender lens over the next year, including recruitment, retention, development, and succession. This will enable us to review policies, ways of working, and cultural structures and develop new tools to attract even more women into Finlays, develop those already here, and ensure women can thrive and deliver their greatest potential at Finlays.

CALCULATING A LIVING WAGE BASELINE

In 2023 Finlays undertook a baseline assessment to understand where our business is relative to what is required to become a Living Wage employer. The project started by reviewing the current methodologies and tools available for estimating a Living Wage, and developing a deeper understanding of the Anker Methodology. The Anker Methodology is considered the gold standard for the measurement of a Living Wage, creating robust estimates for the cost of a basic but decent lifestyle for a worker and their family in a particular place. It defines the data points that need to be included in calculations and provides reference values and Living Wage benchmarks for more than 200 locations.

As part of this review, we developed data collection and reporting templates and tools aligned with the Anker methodology to ensure that our analysis properly captured the diverse nature of our business. Once we collected our data, we then used trusted data sources for benchmarking (e.g., Global Living Wage Coalition, Rainforest Alliance, and national initiatives such as the UK Living Wage Foundation) to ensure our analysis was as robust and accurate as possible. Where Living Wage benchmark data was unavailable or the benchmark range was large, the data was analyzed against multiple sources.

In the coming years, we will look to get a formal review of our methodology to calculate a Living Wage by an external party and start implementing action plans to reduce the Living Wage gap, where identified.

A Living Wage is defined as remuneration (wage + in-kind benefits + bonuses) received for a standard work week by a worker in a particular place sufficient to afford a decent standard of living for the worker and their family.

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CASE STUDY

Supporting women through Finlays Women In Business UK

FWIB is Finlays’ support and career-development network dedicated to female employees across our business. In 2023, FWIB UK ran its first in-person event, a confidence-building workshop that was attended by 30 women. Feedback was very positive and demonstrated the value of providing a forum for women to meet other women from across our different UK sites. Further events hosted by FWIB UK in 2023 included a panel discussion on careers, a variety of skills labs, and third party-hosted sessions on topics such as hormone health, stress and wellbeing, and parenting. In addition, a library was set up at each of our three UK sites offering books proposed by members as well as ones linked to the themes of the year: life in work, life beyond work, and growth and development. Results from the FWIB UK member annual survey showed 86% of those who answered the survey had attended an event and they now rate Finlays UK as 4.12 out of 5 as an employer of women. This is 7% higher than in 2022 and up 11% on 2021.

CASE STUDY
Supporting Finlays’ women in the US

At Finlays in the US, the Women in Business program was reignited in 2023, with a new steering group of passionate women formed to drive forward new initiatives. A survey was launched in the second half of 2023 to gather feedback on how the community can support the growth of women in the workplace. This has been developed into a program to commence in 2024 which includes a public speaking forum, a mentorship club, a book club and a schedule of professional motivational speakers. It is also looking to expand some of the initiatives to men after many expressions of interest in similar topics.

In 2023, we hired our new Chief People Officer at Finlays America, who is also leading on our approach to Diversity and Inclusion from a global perspective, as well as reinvigorating recruitment drives, upskilling the workforce and talent retention in the extracts business.

"In my role as CPO, I align HR strategies with business goals, foster a positive culture, and ensure our employees thrive. Understanding the company’s goals helps me identify critical areas where people can make the most impact. Throughout my career, I've achieved significant milestones, including collaborating with executives to create inclusive workplaces where every voice is heard."

Veronica Van Egmond
Chief People Officer, Finlays Americas

CASE STUDY

Launching a women’s committee, Casa Fuentes

Argentina’s tea sector is heavily male dominated and Finlays was the first tea company in Argentina to employ women as operators in tea factories and on farms. This creates a special responsibility to challenge cultural barriers and ensure women are respected and empowered in the workplace. In particular, we want clear policies on the actions to be taken if women report harassment.

In 2023, Casa Fuentes launched a women’s committee to promote and support women across its business. The committee’s role is to ensure policies and support measures to prevent gender-based discrimination are implemented properly. There is now a designated female representative at each Casa Fuentes site that women can talk to, get support from, and raise issues with. In 2023 the committee also ran two workshops to raise awareness of the initiative and of gender equality more broadly, which were delivered separately to men and women.

SUPPORTING AN ACTION PLAN FOR JAMES FINLAY KENYA / BROWNS PLANTATIONS KENYA

In February 2023, BBC Panorama broadcast a documentary containing allegations of sexual abuse by two contractors working at James Finlay Kenya (JFK).

When we became aware of these allegations, we instigated a series of actions to strengthen safeguarding at JFK. These included enhancing welfare structures and doubling the size of the welfare team, offering free private counselling and psychosocial support to all on site, strengthening JFK’s approach to contractor management, and an extensive campaign to build awareness and trust in our confidential whistleblowing line so that affected persons feel able to come forward. This work has continued after JFK was purchased by Browns Investments Plc in November 2023.

To secure tangible, long-term change, we also commissioned Partner Africa, an NGO working to promote responsible business practices, to carry out an in-depth investigation into the extent and nature of misconduct at JFK. Through Partner Africa, we have sought to understand not just the specific issues alleged in the documentary but the underlying root causes that allowed them to occur.

We received Partner Africa’s final report at the end of 2023 and, since then, have been working with Browns Plantations Kenya (formerly James Finlay Kenya) to implement a robust collaborative action plan (link ) based on its recommendations. The development of the action plan has been led by Finlays and Browns, with the support of NGOs, customers, and other experts.