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EXECUTIVE INTERVIEW

Serving the greater goodAs a customer-centric services business, Sodexo has a keen sense of social responsibility — not just to its employees and clients but to the communities in which it operates.

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In his role as Country President, Nick O’Callaghan collaborates closely with Sodexo Australia’s Country Governance Committee to ensure that it can represent the Australian arm on the global stage and increase its capabilities locally.

“We look at our responsibility across Sodexo’s different business segments in Australia,” Nick says. “These include safety, the development of our people, finding new development opportunities, leveraging our global scale and translating it for the local market, as well as continuing all of our strong corporate social responsibility efforts.”

Nick has been with Sodexo since 2007, and thinks now is the most exciting time for Sodexo in Australia, as it is going through a period of change in response to a changing market. “The transformation of the workplace has been really interesting, and we need to adapt our services to assist with that change — things like increased automation and the effect of advances in the digital world. Clients and consumers are demanding more and more. In response to these changes, we are going through this exciting evolution to transform ourselves. It’s a fundamental transformation; that is about adapting our model to fit this changing market.

Name Nick O’CallaghanCompany SodexoPosition Country

President, AustraliaHQ Melbourne, Australia

Worldwide Employees 420,000

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“We are a significant international business, so we need to take advantage of that scale and expertise globally, and continue to adapt to the Australian market in order for us to grow faster and drive our unique value proposition. Our client base is looking to find efficiencies and wants our support to do that, so we need to be really specific and have an intimate understanding of our clients’ businesses, whatever they may be: whether it’s an educational facility, aged-care facility, offshore rig, prison, head office, retail store, local petrol station, or a huge minesite — they all have different expectations, and we are able to offer a customised

solution because of our broad scale and expertise. We have also recently expanded our services to the Australian healthcare segment, which is exciting.”

Sodexo provides its clients with a wide variety of services, such as facilities management, catering, cleaning, security, building maintenance, and landscaping services, to name a few.

As a highly complex business and a highly operational business, there is a broad range of suppliers that Sodexo uses to deliver on its reputation for world-class service. “We have a strong network of

suppliers,” says Nick. “And we engage a complex supply chain, but each of those individual partners, whether large or small, plays an important role. We operate in all major cities but also in small and remote towns such as in the Pilbara in Western Australia, so our suppliers are critically important to our success.”

Australia-wide, all services provided by Sodexo are underpinned by the company’s mission — to improve quality of life. “The idea of Quality of Life is that the services we provide and the way our teams operate will result in a tangible and real improvement in the daily lives of our clients and the communities in which we operate,” Nick explains.

“In simple terms, this means demonstrating our values through the work we do every day. That could be within our client or consumer’s physical environment, through social interaction, or through their own personal growth. It could be through making things easier and more efficient for our clients and our consumers, to help with recognition in the workplace, and of course through health and wellbeing where we can have a positive influence in the workplace.

“Our people are the key drivers in achieving our mission. We are a people business, and Sodexo is a significant

employer in Australia, with 4,000 people today and growing. We focus on the quality of life for our employees as well, ensuring that they achieve their ambitions and feel valued in the workplace,” Nick says.

This sense of social responsibility extends even further and Sodexo has won numerous awards both globally and in Australia. “It’s always very nice to be recognised, because the teams work so hard,” Nick says. “We’ve made Fortune’s World’s Most Admired Companies list four years in a row — that’s really great validation. We won AMMA’s Workforce Innovation Award for our work in mental health, which is great. We have ranked first or second in DiversityInc’s Top 50 Companies for Diversity over the past five years and we’ve also won in all three categories at the Sustainability Leadership Awards for the eighth year in a row.”

Sodexo also has an unwavering focus on safety. “It’s all about safety, as how can anyone have quality of life if you are injured?” Nick says. “Safety has to be top of mind at all times. We take a preventive approach, and we always look to make sure we maintain our strong safety record. When we talk about safety, it’s traditionally been

about physical safety; what we have realised is the need to also focus on mental wellbeing.

EXECUTIVE INTERVIEW

“We are a significant international business, so we need to take advantage of that scale and that expertise globally, and continue to adapt to the Australian market in order for us to grow faster and drive our unique value proposition.” - Nick O’Callaghan

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EXECUTIVE INTERVIEW

“Sodexo’s employee ‘I Hear You’ initiative was developed to start the mental health conversation with our people. It’s not about claiming to be experts in the field, but about simply opening up dialogue and removing the stigma attached to mental health issues in our community. We have also embedded some professional preventive measures in our business to take action.

“The ‘I Hear You’ initiative is something we are extraordinarily proud of. We’re open about what we do with our clients, the community, our suppliers, and the market in general — very open — because it’s not an issue isolated to Sodexo; it’s a community-wide challenge. We stand as equals in this area to share what it is that we know and have been able to achieve.”

Another initiative Nick is proud of is the business’s 2015 entry to the Elevate

level of the Reconciliation Australia’s Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP). “It’s more than just nice words in an annual report,” Nick says. “Our RAP Elevate sets out Sodexo’s three-year reconciliation strategy. Our four priority areas are very tangible, critical commitments that we need to deliver on, to achieve meaning ful outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander individuals and communities.”

Becoming the Employer of Choice, Strengthening Relationships and Supporting Cultures, Supplier Diversity and New Ways of Working Together, and Strong Governance are the four priorities set out in Sodexo’s RAP Elevate. “It starts with Sodexo’s Australian Governance Committee getting deeply involved, along with our Indigenous Engagement Team,” Nick explains. “ You can’t have these priorities without being personally

involved and having a genuine interest; that’s part of the success. The Sodexo team has that interest and that progressive attitude, not just as employees but simply as members of the community. It’s not just up to the government or the NGOs; employers have a social responsibility. Hopefully we can make a difference.”

Throughout its RAP journey, Sodexo has built strong relationships and called on the expertise of many organisations to guide it along the journey. Supply Nation is one example. “They are a not-for-profit organisation,” Nick explains, “which links corporate Australia — and government, for that matter — with Indigenous businesses. We currently engage with thirty-six Indigenous businesses, and procure services from sixteen of them. Of these, ten are Supply Nation-certified, and we are helping others to undertake or

pursue that certification. It’s really exciting — it’s great for Australia, it’s great for Sodexo, and it’s one aspect of our wide and complex supply chain that we are especially proud of.”

Nick says it’s something Sodexo plans to develop further. “We have set robust targets to ensure we continue to deliver on this commitment, in order for Sodexo’s managers to continue to embed a culture of Indigenous supplier engagement. Supply Nation is a great partner to enable Sodexo to progress in this area.”

EXECUTIVE INTERVIEW

“It’s not just up to government or the NGOs; employers have a social responsibility. Hopefully we can make a difference.” - Nick O’Callaghan

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