Boots Corporate Social Responsibility: Approach to Health and Safety and Managing Equality and Diversity in the Workplace

This essay analyzes Boots' approach to health and safety and managing equality and diversity in the workplace. It examines the company's policies and initiatives, such as health and safety measures, diversity and inclusivity day, and career programs. The essay also evaluates how these policies can help deliver strategic effect and how internal and external factors affect their implementation.

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Boots Corporate Social Responsibility
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Introduction
There is a great relationship between human resource management of a company with its
corporate strategies. The establishment of corporate social responsibility (CSR) strategies is
crucial for a company’s competitiveness in the industry (Chernev and Blair, 2015, p. 1420). The
human resource management (HRM) of Boots properly integrates its HRM roles and corporate
strategy to enhance its productivity. Boots Company has achieved a positive reputation in the
society at large while maximizing employees, shareholders and stockholders interest. Employee
development greatly contributes to enhancing a company's CRS and shareholders interest in an
organization, and this is a major concern by Boots (Frederick, 2008, p. 66). While HRM’s
relationship with corporate strategy helps Boots manage human resource effectively, other
internal and external factors influence employment relationship in the company. Such factors
include employees’ motivation, health safety measures, remuneration, socio-economic factors,
environmental, technology and many other factors. The ability to enhance growth and
sustainability in the market by a Company depends on its ability to integrate CSR strategies and
the HRM roles (Neugebauer, 2014, p. 306). The purpose of this essay is to identify and analyze
Boots approach to employees’ health and safety as well as analyzing the company’s approach to
managing equality and employees’ diversity in the workplace. Finally, the essay will examine
the internal and external factors influencing employees’ relationship with Boots Company.
Company’s Approach to Health and Safety
The human resource management of Boots acknowledges employees, customers, and the society
form the most important assets for the company. One of Boots Company mission is enhancing
employees’ health and safety measures approaches which have made Boots a great and more

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preferred place to work by employees (Bowling, 2014, p. 7). The human resource management
of Boots understands that all employees, customers, visitors and other interested parties put their
trust in Boots; and this is why the safety of everyone matter. The company constantly engages in
continuous performance improvements in the health and safety of all these groups. The company
has established robust and health safety measures to enhance employees, customers, and visitors
safety while within and without its premises. The following are the health and safety measures
that Boots have established in an attempt to create a healthy working and business environment
for all interested groups:
Health and safety policy
Recently, the company refreshed and updated its health and safety policies to enhance clarity and
easiness in reading and ensuring that these policies focus on two main items. These objectives
are:
Health and safety document
The main aim of establishing the health and safety document is to enhance employees,
customers, and visitors health interests in the company (Hohnen and Hasle, 2011, p.1025).
Further, the policy aims at establishing means of perfecting its health and safety measures
approach. The policy includes:
 Safety governance
 Safety culture strengthening and enhancement
 Health and safety approach principle
 Enhancing learning from any investigations

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 Merits of establishing safety behavior and systems
Monitoring safety business risks and performance
Also, the company has advanced its strategies for monitoring safety business risks and
performance by refreshing its continuous review on a monthly basis to its workplace-related
risks through the Boots UK Governance Committee. The human resource management is
required to report on a monthly basis its review on business risks that expose the employees and
company to safety threats (Jiang et al., 2012, p. 1280). Two important strategic safety steering
groups have been formed which include the Nottingham Site Safety Steering Group and The
Retail Steering Group help in developing right safety strategies and ensuring that the risks the
company is exposed to are assessed and addressed properly by establishing the right mitigating
strategies.
Development of a safety culture plan
A good safety management system cannot operate in isolation. With this knowledge, the
company has implemented a safety culture plan that encourages managers to be keen when
integrating health and safety measures to every day’s targeted operations (Neugebauer, 2014, p.
306). Further, the managers are encouraged to ensure regular communication shares lessons as
well as seeking colleagues’ inputs when formulating new strategies for improving their safety
and that of customers.
Health and Safety Partnerships
The primary partners of Boots UK Safety Team are The Highlands Council who help the
company in reviewing its in-stores in order to understand the reliability of its safety systems and

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provide recommendations that require being implemented in the overall safety plan of the
company. These reviews have offered the company the right feedback of enhancing Retail Safety
that will help the company to improve its safety strategies, plans and performances going
forward (Neugebauer, 2014, p. 306). In this perspective, the company has strengthened and will
keep enhancing its safety measures on colleagues, customers, and visitors.
Enhancing workplace comfortableness
Workforce health and wellbeing is in the heart of Boots’ operations. The management wants all
employees to feel good, whether they are taking care of their families through the company’s
pharmacists, relaxing at their own pleasure or even enjoying retail therapy in its stores. The
HRM continuously finds new ways of supporting employees and helping them live a happy and
healthy lifestyle.
Work well Campaigns
Boots Company closely works with the BITC campaign in an attempt to improve employees’
wellness while in the workplace. Business in the Community (BITC) has assisted the company
has one of the most engaged workforces in the world.
Occupational Health Service
The company provides its employees with the best advice on work and health. The establishment
of Occupational Health Service has since 2011 enabled the company increases the quality of
work and health of employees while in the workplace through the following initiatives:
Bike to Work Week: Riding and running alongside National Bike Week has been adopted by the
company to encourage employees to cycle to and fro work as an initiative of raising awareness of

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the health benefits associated to cycling. During the program, the company holds competitions,
offer advice and biking promotions. This empowers health to the colleagues.
Products and services: Boots provide all team members with a broad variety of products and
services such as staff discount card, discounted flu vaccines, discounted eye tests, seasonal
product discounts, contact lenses and glasses among many other offers to ensure that they access
health services on a lower price (Rosental, 2009, p. 170). This empowers health living to the
workforce and their families.
Safeguarding and prevent: Boots operates using a safeguarding and prevention policy set to
guard vulnerable employees form unsecured operations that harm their health and safety in the
workplace. The company has drawn signs that are displayed in the whole organization's
(noticeboards) to inform the colleagues the risk signs that can harm their health if they get in
contact with them.
Company’s Approach to Managing Equality and Diversity in the Workplace
Equality and diversity in the workplace are highly practiced at Boots. The human resource
management of the company aims at boosting Boots position and competitiveness in the market.
The employees of the company come from different cultural backgrounds, ethnic groups, races,
and religious backgrounds (Bennett, 2009, p. 443). The management has established a uniform
work culture that all employees are expected to conform with when undertaking their job
activities. The working and learning environment at Boots is one of the best, and this is done
only to enhance equality and diversity of the workforce in the workplace. The following are the
approaches taken by Boots in managing equality and diversity of employees in the workplace:

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Inclusion and diversity
Boots has a fantastic way of enhancing employees’ inclusivity and diversity in the workplace.
The management of Boots understands that a diverse workforce creates a culture in which great
ideas and new plans are inspired by the colleagues. The human resource management of Boots
recruits, hires, selects, retains and promotes a diverse mix of personnel who represent the
diversity in the local communities (Èzbilgin, 2009, p. 20). As a result, the company has an
excellent opportunity to a wide range of ideas that allows it to design a great mix of products that
are demanded by the Boots customers in the market.
The snapshot of Boots workforce profile is excellent and encompasses the following:
Gender inequity: 79 percent of Boots employees are formed by women. Most companies
discriminate against women in the workplace. However, Boots has enhanced women inclusivity
in the total workforce to the extent that men form only 21 percent of the total employees of the
company (Greene and Kirton, 2015, p. 12). The human resource management needs to enhance
gender equity in the total employees by balancing the gender factor preferably 50 percent on
each gender. Gender inequity in one way or another is negatively affecting employees’
productivity in the company.
Ethnic balance: There is ethnic balance in the number of employees recruited at Boots Company.
Approximately 35 percent of the employees in the company come from an ethnic minority; this
shows how the company has been considerate in balancing ethnicity in the company. Given this
number of the workforce from an ethnic minority, it has been possible for the HRM to establish a
proper comparison between the overall ration of women in the company to women's proportions

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working with the competitor companies. As it stands, Boots Company has the best balance of
ethnic groups in its workforce as compared to other players in the industry.
Dignity at work: In 2012, the company introduced a new policy “Dignity at Work”, that guides
the employees and the HRM in ensuring that they undertake all their roles in line with the set
legislations by understanding that they work in a truly representative and diverse range of UK
communities. The company has established a diversity and inclusivity day that facilitates a
strong link between the community and business led by all work teams. In this event, guest
speakers from other larger players in the industry are invited to come and share their approaches
to equality and diversity in the workplace (Underhill and Quinlan, 2011, p. 420). Such events
have been effective in enhancing the company's focus on diversity and inclusivity. Further, these
events have helped Boots in upgrading its priorities towards workplace diversity.
Career programs: The human resource management of the company has established a broad
range of career programs for all employees in an attempt to increase their skills, knowledge, and
competence in their roles.
Diverse e-learning packages: Boots has established diverse electronic learning packages that suit
all employees needs regardless of their gender, ethnic, and position in the workplace. As a result,
the company encourages creativity and innovation of employees and such ideas are rewarded
without any racial, ethnic, or gender bias by the human resource managers in partnership with
the company’s top leadership.
Work experience programs: The human resource management is actively engaged in delivering
work-experience programs to all employees including those coming from communities that are

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traditionally difficult to reach. There is no discrimination against any community group in the
company.
Women in Information Technology (IT)
The company has tirelessly tried to ensure that there is no discrimination of any gender in the
key organizational departments such as IT. The Women in IT network was launched so as to
promote women talents in Boots IT department and offer to mentor and networking opportunities
for the women to give back to the community and the company as well. Women in IT seeks to
raise the number of women in the IT industry, improve living standards for those already
working in IT, enhance talent retention in the business as well as addressing gender imbalance
issue in such key departments.
Progress Benchmarks
Recently, Boots participated in the BITC “Opportunity Now” and “Race for Opportunity”
benchmarking survey programs that aimed at empowering race and gender equality in the
workplace. The survey program results have helped Boots HRM advance its employee equity
and diversity in the workplace (Jiménez, Winkler, and Dunkl, 2017, p. 2440). The management
is recruiting more men to resolve the problem of gender imbalance in the number of workforces
in order to encourage productivity and inclusivity as required by "Employees Equality and
Diversity Act" in the workplace.
Evaluate how the Company’s Approach to these two Aspects of Human Resource
Management might help to Deliver Strategic Effect, and how its approach is affected by
both Internal and External Factors

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Boots approach Health and Safety and managing Equality and Diversity in the workplace in
respect to UK legislation and academic theories in relation to these two approaches have a great
potential of helping the company deliver a strategic effect in its day to day operations (Tai and
Chuang, 2014, p. 117). This part clearly evaluates the strategic effect that Boots has a potential to
realize on the proper utilization of these two policies in accordance to UK base legislations about
Health and Safety Act and Equality and Diversity Act in the workplace. The following are the
strategic effects that are available to the company:
Employee skills and talent development
Enhancing Equality and Diversity in the workplace by the management of Boots will enhance
talent, skills, and knowledge development in the workplace. The decision by Boots to recruit
employees from different cultural, racial, and ethnic backgrounds presents the company with a
perfect opportunity to promote employees talent development (Renwick, Redman, and Maguire,
2013, p. 410). Interaction of diverse workforce in the workplace also offers the company a
chance of enhancing the knowledge, care, and skills levels of employees given their interaction
with one another while each staff has a different skill from the rest. A conducive environment for
sharing of ideas is created.
Improves employee performance
Establishing health and safety measures together with employees' equality and diversity in the
workplace offers the company the right chance to improve employees' performance. Personnel
working in a healthy and risk-free environment are happy. A healthy working environment
reduces chances of sicknesses and improves workforce wellbeing, fitness, and comfortableness
in the workplace (Lin and Wu, 2014, p. 410). Further, equality and diversity of employees in the

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workplace play an important role in encouraging staff from various backgrounds to remain
confident and express their capabilities and skills towards achieving their best. Motivated
employees love what they do for the company. Increased employees performance directly
contributes towards advancing the overall profitability and productivity of the company in its
medical business.
Better decision making
Encouraging diversity in the team members of the company's workforce offers Boots a good
opportunity to enhance the quality of decisions made within the enterprise. The diversity of
employees encompass staff with varying ideas that when considered in decision making might
help the HRM make the best decisions and hence avoiding conflicts from arising. When it comes
to critical decisions involving implementing a safety measure, grouping of work teams, and
implementing of a new health policy; all employees need to be given an opportunity to share
their idea on the same hence resulting to better decision making by Boots (Foster, 2014, p. 260).
The mix of perspectives from different employees exposes the company to opportunities of
enhanced creativity, fresher ideas, and more spontaneous breakthrough where ideas conflict.
Diverse teams serve customers better
The main objective of Boots in-stores is delivering high-quality customer care services that
delight and satisfy customers' experience while interacting with the company. The company has
the opportunity to offer high-quality customer service given its recruitment of employees with
the right skills and from diverse backgrounds in accordance to "Equality and Diversity UK Act"
who offer the right assistance to customers (Lin and Lin, 2008, p. 140). Having employees with
the right skills and from diverse cultures might help the company in tailoring high-quality

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conversations with customers and offering complete solutions to their health and beauty needs
(Brewster, 2017, p. 30).
However, Boots approach to “Health and Safety” and approach to managing “Equality and
Diversity” in the workplace is affected by both internal and external business environmental
factors as explained below;
Internal factors
Human resources: Bolts is known to recruit employees with the right qualifications, skills, and
knowledge about pharmacy business. The company has established employee development and
retention initiatives (Baicker, Cutler, and Song, 2010, p. 310). Further, new employees are taken
through orientation to induct them into Boots daily business operations. This knowledge and
skills development of employees through training greatly impacts on the company’s management
approach to “Health and Safety” as well as workforce “Equality and Diversity”.
Management policies: The human resource management has exercised gender discrimination in
its approaches towards employee's recruitment. 79 percent of the company's entire workforce is
composed of women, and this shows how men are discriminated against. Further, the company
has established a new strategy to encourage women in IT and not any initiative is taken towards
empowering men's place in the company (De Medeiros, Ribeiro, and Cortimiglia, 2014, p. 80).
This negatively affects the company’s policy for enhancing equality as well as workplace
diversity.
External Factors

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Socio-cultural factors: On the other side, Equality and Diversity in the workplace together with
Health and safety managerial measures taken by Boots are affected by socio-cultural factors
(Schwartz, 2017, p. 50). The whole society/ community has been respected by the company by
recruiting employees from all backgrounds to an extent of even hiring 35 percent of its total
workforce from an ethnic minority.
Economic factors: The management understands that the economic depressions affect their
employees’ position to access healthcare. As a result, the company has provided the employees
with discounts on health products and services to ensure that they access the same at a much-
discounted price (Purce, 2014, p. 67). Occupational Health Service is offered for free to raise
awareness on the health benefits to employees. By this doing, Boots is preventing its employees
from adverse economic conditions.
Conclusion
In conclusion, enhancing employees “Health and Safety” and managing “Equality and Diversity”
in the workplace play important roles in employees talent development, performance
improvement, and creativity and innovation which contributes to improved performance and
productivity of a company. The establishment of health and safety measures acts as a tool for
safeguarding employees’ wellbeing as well as a tool for preventing a company from any internal
and external risks that expose the business to adverse business operations. Also, the proper
management of equality and diversity in the workplace encourages creativity and innovation,
better decision making, conflict resolution, and a sense of belonging in which employees feel
comfortable while associating themselves to the company. Boots must address equality and
diversity in the workplace when it comes to women and men’s position in the workplace. Gender

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discrimination against men by the company might draw the company backward in future hence
giving the two competitors a chance to compete them out from the market and industry. Further,
the company needs to adjust its health and safety measures to ensure that employees feel secure
and work in a more conducive working environment in which the business itself will thrive too.
Finally, there is need to continue training and development programs by the company to its
employees so as to enhance competitiveness and counter against any internal or external market
forces that can contribute to the company’s failure in the industry.

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