Sean Haley on Sodexo's half-year fiscal results
Following the announcement of Sodexo’s half-year financial results, Sean Haley, region chair for Sodexo UK & Ireland said:
Today’s half year financial results reflect the strength and agility of our business as we retain and win new business across all sectors.
We continue in our commitment to grow responsibly with a defined purpose and over the last six months have made advances in our positive impact on the communities in which we live and work. This includes the publication of our roadmap to net zero and decarbonisation of our business. One area of progress on this is our engagement with industry and political stakeholders to address the urgent issue of tackling food waste through our Appetite for Action campaign.
Our growth continues and since September we have been appointed as sole supplier on the property services integrator framework for the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime (MOPAC), we are now the exclusive venue partner at DW Stadium and have also begun a five-year contract at Her Majesty’s Royal Naval Base in Portsmouth.
Further highlights of this period include the delivery of a full hospitality programme at RHS Chelsea Flower Show – which was delayed due to Covid and held in September – and the launch of Sodexo’s innovation lab in the UK and Ireland to attract innovative start-ups to work with us.
We continue to develop our services to meet the needs of our clients as we learn to live with Covid. In Healthcare, where our teams deliver excellence at hospitals across the country, we have launched two new services. The first, Protecta, through our new partnership with the Infection Prevention Society, is an evidence-based infection prevention approach for hospitals. The second, Experiencia, is a unique insights platform enabling our teams to gather meaningful, in the moment, feedback from patients on their non-clinical experience. This includes everything from the cleanliness of the care environment through to the meals they are served.
Another new and exciting collaboration in the last six months is the one we commenced with the British Nutrition Foundation to create the Healthy Futures Partnership. This will work towards improving future health outcomes for children and young people. Just this week we have announced the enhanced Powering Performance programme for independent schools, one of the first projects the Healthy Futures Partnership has supported.
Finally, as Covid-19 test centres closed in England yesterday, We are enormously proud of everything our teams have achieved to support the government’s national response to the pandemic. Irrespective of the exceptional circumstances, we are committed that every single one of our colleagues and casual workers is treated fairly and recompensed in accordance with their employment rights and are doing all we can to help them secure new work and prepare for their future. We are pleased to see our Sodexo Live! business reinvigorated and workplaces welcoming workers back, this is also helping us to offer our test centre colleagues redeployment opportunities as we strengthen our teams in these areas.
It remains a challenging time for all and we remain committed to ensuring that through our operations we have a positive impact on the communities in which we live, work and serve, and will continue to do all we can to support the health and wellbeing of our colleagues.
Sean Haley, CEO of Sodexo UK & Ireland