16 Vodafone Group Plc Annual Report 2025
Strategic report
Governance
Financials
Other information
Our people strategy continued
We hosted a series of global events from October to December to increase disability awareness and allyship as well as promote technologies that improve disability inclusion. In December we launched the disability allyship programme which includes learnings and actions colleagues can take to become allies. To further inform our work on disability inclusion we asked, ‘Are your colleagues aware of your disability at work?’ in our Spirit Beat survey. 60% of our disabled community have made colleagues aware of their disability. Race, ethnicity and cultural heritage (‘REACH’) We continue to promote greater workplace inclusion through allyship and anti-racism. This year we also voluntarily integrated an ethnicity pay gap calculation into our UK pay gap report. This report calculates the pay gap in our UK companies with 250 or more employees. Details of the ethnicity pay gap can be found in our UK Pay Gap Report. Click to read more about our UK pay gap report: vodafone.com/uk-pay-gap This year 331 colleagues attended the McKinsey Black, Asian and Hispanic/Latino Connected Leaders Academy to grow their leadership skills and potential. In 2020, we set ethnic diversity targets at leadership level, presented below.
Leadership Diversity To better understand representation across the organisation and inform our diversity and inclusion programmes, we use ‘#CountMeIn’, an initiative that supports employees to voluntarily share their diversity demographics. This includes race, ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, and caring responsibilities, in line with local privacy and legal requirements 1 . 70% of our senior leadership have shared diversity data and this enables transparency on diversity at senior leadership. Read more about the Board’s engagement with the employee voice on pages 73 to 76 and 81 Sexual orientation 2 Ethnic diversity 3 Disability 4 Notes: 1. Excludes Mozambique and Egypt as markets do not ask ethnicity questions 2. Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and other sexual orientations, excluding heterosexual 3. Asian, Arab, Black/African/Caribbean, Latin, mixed ethnic groups, and ‘other’ identities. 4. Self-identification of disability, including long-term conditions and visible and non-visible disabilities. Policies, initiatives and targets Our commitment to diversity and inclusion is reflected across our global policies and principles, such as our code of conduct and fair pay principles. We continue to apply fair pay principles across all markets, working with the WageIndicator Foundation to ensure a good standard of living in each market. In the UK, our commitment to these principles is reflected in being an Accredited Living Wage employer. Click to read more about Fair Pay at Vodafone: vodafone.com/fair-pay Representation in senior leadership positions 2% 24% 4%
through leadership assessment, development planning, and coaching. To support the development of key groups we launched specific leadership interventions to accelerate their development to our most senior positions. We also scaled our leadership programme, the ‘Vodafone Leader Labs’, to 10,000 leaders globally to deliver our strategy, embed leadership shifts and standards, and equip them with tools to be successful. Performance Underpinning all our activities, has been an ongoing focus on raising the bar on performance through our performance management framework ‘Grow my Impact’. Employee goals are aligned to strategic priorities and performance is assessed based on individual impact. This framework recognises individuals with differentiated performance and reward. Our financial recognition programme ‘Vodafone Stars’ and our peer-to-peer recognition programme ‘Vodafone Thank You’ continued to celebrate colleagues during the year for their impact and display of the ‘Spirit of Vodafone’ behaviours. For instance, 23,120 peer-to-peer ‘Thank You’s’ and 61,364 ‘Vodafone Star’ awards were delivered during the year. Skills We support professional growth of our colleagues by providing online learning through our platform ‘Grow with Vodafone’ and continued to deliver our ‘Skill Accelerators and Labs’, with over 17,000 colleagues completing them this year. Across all activities, our colleagues spent 2.9 million hours on learning, with an average of 240,500 hours per month, an increase of 3% since FY24. We invested an average of €180 in both mandatory and non-mandatory training for each employee to build future capabilities. To support our focus on B2B, we trained our sales population on new capabilities, developed a new skills framework, launched a skills self-check tool, developed new learning, facilitated skills labs and issued 23 external sales certifications. Over 800
The achievement of our diversity targets is dependent on the attraction, engagement and retention of diverse talent and skills. To support this, we have inclusive initiatives such as: hybrid and flexible working, parental leave, a mental health toolkit, learning and development programmes, allyship training, and menopause and domestic abuse support. Programmes are designed to help employees through all life stages and challenge societal norms to create an environment where everyone can contribute The Vodafone Learning Organisation operates across all entities to deliver high-quality learning that supports diverse talent and develops the skills and capabilities required to deliver our strategy. This year our three-year capability plan was at their best and thrive. People development refreshed, considering external trends and changes to Vodafone’s strategy. Five key capabilities were identified to accelerate the delivery of our strategy: ‘Customer Experience’, ‘Operational Intensity’, ‘Business to Business’ (‘B2B’), ‘Commercial P&L Ownership’, and ‘AI/GenAI’. In September we refreshed our global Employee Value Proposition (‘EVP’) formed of four principles, underpinned by the Spirit of Vodafone and realigned to the Vodafone strategy. This outlines what we stand for as an employer and captures the most compelling reasons to work at Vodafone. Talent and leadership To accelerate the development of high potential talent, this year we launched the ‘Talent Deal’, an agreed set of expectations for both colleagues and their managers. It offers support, resources, and development opportunities to those with the highest potential. We made coaching available to all colleagues either through our global coaching partner or an internal network of trained coaches. We continued to review our succession and talent development plans for senior leaders identified as key talent. Talents in our two key succession pools, which comprises of 30% women, received support
31 March 2025
Long-term ambition
Ethnic category
Population
24% 31 Mar 2030: 25% 17% 31 Dec 2025: 20% 2% 31 Dec 2025: 4%
Global Senior Leadership Team (127 positions) 1 UK-based senior leadership and management (1,787 positions)
Global Ethnically diverse background UK Black, Asian, other diverse ethnicities
UK Black
Note: 1. Excludes Mozambique and Egypt as markets do not ask ethnicity questions
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