Strategy overview

Strategic Report
Governance
Financial Statements

Unlocking our strategy
Our Places

Our Platform

Our People

Our Position

To be a leader in markets we choose
to serve

Create a world-class operational platform
through data, technology
and infrastructure

Find, develop and retain great people

Leverage our position in STEM to deliver
sustainable value to our candidates
and clients

Key performance indicators we track for these pillars

Key performance indicators we track for these pillars

Key performance indicators we track for these pillars

Key performance indicators we track for these pillars•

Net fees.

•

Operating profit conversion ratio.

•

Representation of women in leadership roles.

•

Customer net promoter score (NPS).

•Net fees through renewable business.

•

Profit before tax.

•

Employee net promoter score (eNPS).

•

Number of lives positively impacted.

•

Basic earnings per share.

•

Carbon reduction.

•

Total shareholder return.

Progress on FY23 priorities

Progress on FY23 priorities

Progress on FY23 priorities

Progress on FY23 priorities•

Built a performance dashboard so managers canunderstand the status and client focus of their team.

••

Redefinition and internal launch of our new values.

•

Tracked key STEM skill verticals and matched headcountinvestment in core growth markets.

••

Continued to deliver commercial pricing discipline andgrew average bill rates.

•

Began adaptation of the office estate to hybrid working.

Reinforced positioning of our go-to-market brands as
specialists in specific vertical skills.

•

Used an agile approach to enhance consultant productivity
through the new tools.

Conducted employee engagement surveys with 81%
participation.

Promotion of new research, ‘How the STEM world
evolves’, to support thought-leadership positioning.

•

Began the roll out of our new Customer RelationshipManagement (CRM) system and Enterprise Resource
Planning system as part of a unified technology platform.

•

Continued to develop our talent pool through a ‘Leadingwith Purpose’ programme, rolled out to our leadershipcohorts, for improved succession management, andintroduced a new cohort of future women leaders into
Identify programme.

•

Finalised the formal planning for the establishment of a
dedicated Customer Marketing function, to support ourincreasing client and candidate-focus, for implementation
in FY24.

•

Creation of new role of Chief Commercial Officer torepresent the customer on ExCo.

•

Launched Elevate Careers programmes for diversifying
STEM talent pipeline.

••

Creation of new role of Chief Operating Officer torepresent operations on Executive Committee (ExCo).

•

Compensation framework review.

•

Enhanced our operating model with a clearer matrix
structure for core function support to our markets.

Initiatives and immediate priorities for FY24

Initiatives and immediate priorities for FY24

Initiatives and immediate priorities for FY24

Initiatives and immediate priorities for FY24•

Improve the use of data-driven insights to focus our effortson the highest-demand STEM skill verticals, and scaleteams supporting those sectors.

•

Continue the CRM roll out to other major markets with afocus on the change management approach to adopt new
ways of working.

•Embed new values across the Group and evolve our
Employee Value Proposition (EVP).

•

Further refine specialist positioning of our House of Brands
portfolio.

•

Enhance customer-orientated behaviours through bestpractice training and a more globalised sector approach.

••

Build a programme to enhance our People model, focusing
on retaining key talent and driving a shorter time-toproductivity.

•

Drive more customer-centricity into the organisationand embed our Sales Excellence programme across theorganisation.

•

Implement a more efficient set of processes for placing
candidates into international locations.

Continue refinements to processes to improve theemployee experience, share best practice and shorten thepathway to productivity for new hires.

•

Embed the Leadership with Purpose behaviours andextend our leadership development programme.

••

Continue DE&I initiatives.

Expand the remit of our commercial function to improve
marketing effectiveness, pricing approach and client
development approaches.

•

For internal recruitment purposes, launch a data-driven
competency testing framework.

•

Implement/launch a newly created Customer
Marketing function.

•

Continue to optimise our office footprint in line withcurrent working model expectations.

•

Extend L&D offering to equip our people with theenhanced platform skills.

Our approach to ESG*

Our approach to ESG*

Our approach to ESG*

Our approach to ESG*••

Deliver efficiencies so we can transition to net zero.

•

•

•

Build the systems that will provide our clients with accessto the very best talent to deliver their low-carbon
transition plans.

Create a culture where everyone is welcome at SThree so
we empower our people to thrive.

•

Improve diversity across our client portfolio and the STEM
sectors in which we operate.

Build diverse STEM talent communities that enable ourclients to meet their business objectives and make STEM
careers more accessible to everyone.

•

Run or partner on events that build diverse STEM talent
career pathways.

•

18*	Integral to our purpose and strategy is a strong emphasis on our ESG commitments.
We bring skilled people together to build a sustainable future for everyone.

Positively impacting over 150,000 lives by FY24 throughproviding access to decent work and our community
programmes.
Help the world move to net zero by finding clients therenewables talent they need to make the transition.

SThree plc

Annual Report and Accounts 2023

19

Key performance indicators

Strategic Report
Governance
Financial Statements

SThree’s Board and
ExCo review the Group
performance across awide range of measuresand indicators that areconsistent with our strategic
priorities and investor
proposition.
Our key performance indicators (KPIs)
provide a balanced set of metrics thatgive emphasis to both financial and nonfinancial measures, in line with interestsof various groups of our stakeholders.
Remuneration
To help our Board and Executive
Committee align their focus with theinterests of our stakeholders, all of
the KPIs are reflected in the executive
remuneration targets, as per the policy
approved by shareholders at the 2023
Annual General Meeting.

Our Places

Our Platform

Be a leader in markets we choose to serve

Create a world-class operational platform through data,technology and infrastructure

Net fees

Net fees through global
clean energy business

Basic earnings per share(EPS)

Total shareholder return(TSR)

Operating profit
conversion ratio

Profit before tax (PBT)

Carbon reduction

This KPI is calculated asrevenue less cost of sales, andrepresents the mark-up we
charge to our clients on top
of candidate salaries. It is oneof our fundamental financial
measures as it indicates how
our business is performing
over time. Our FY27 mediumterm target is to grow our net
fees faster than our peer groupacross the aggregate of our
top five markets comparedto FY19.

This KPI represents growth in
the Group’s net fees generated
from placements of candidates
in the renewable energy sector
since FY19. A transition to a
low-carbon future will drive
an increase in STEM job
opportunities. Our target is to
double the size of our global
clean energy business by FY24
versus the base year FY19.

EPS helps to assess theGroup’s profitability per share.
Internally, it is also used forthe vesting assessment of theGroup Long-Term Incentive
Plans. Our ongoing target is toachieve earnings growth forshareholders while balancing
reinvestment to secure future
growth opportunities.

The growth in value of ashareholding over a threeyear period, assuming that
dividends are reinvested
at the closing price on the
ex-dividend date. This KPI
helps to assess the Group’s
performance in the delivery
and maximisation of longterm value for shareholders.
Our ongoing target is togenerate good returns on theinvestments we make andcreate long-term value forshareholders.

This measure represents
operating profit stated asa percentage of net fees.
It measures the Group’s
effectiveness in controlling
costs and managing its
investments for future growth.
Our aim is to operate ourbusiness efficiently and costeffectively with stable margins
and to deliver a mid-termsustainable operating profit
conversion ratio in excessof 21%.

The KPI represents net fees
less administrative expenses,
less interest before adjusting
items. It is a measure of ourunderlying profitability, ourefficiency and how we manage
our cost base. Deliveringa healthy and consistently
profitable growth is important
as we aim to create value forall our stakeholders over thelong term.

In FY23, we announced ourambitious commitment to
reduce scope 1 and 2 carbon
emissions by 77%, and scope
3 carbon emissions by 50%
by FY30, from a FY19 base.
Our medium-term ambition
is to reduce scope 1, 2 and3 carbon emissions by 25%
between FY19 and FY24.
Progress against carbon
reduction is also used as afactor in determining vestingof Long-Term Incentive Plans
granted to executives.

42.4p

51.7%

18%

£78m

8%

£419m 142%
-4% on FY22

growth on FY19

FY23

£419m

FY23

FY22

£431m

FY22

FY21
FY20

£356m

FY21

£309m

FY20

142%
88%
46%
20%

+4% on FY22

+16.3% pts on FY22

FY23

42.4p

FY23

FY22

41.0p

FY22

FY21
FY20

31.8p**
13.9p**

51.7%
35.4%

FY21
FY20

flat in % pts on FY22

85.6%

reduction from baseyear FY19

FY23

18%

FY23

£78m

FY22

18%

FY22

£77m

FY21

-15.8%-2%* on FY22

FY20

17%**
10%**

FY23

-8% YoY

FY22 -44% YoY

FY21£60m**FY21

FY20£30m**

FY20-71% YoY-56% YoY

Result (% growth on base year 2019)

FY23 performance
Net fees declined 4%* YoY; thiswas a resilient performance
underpinned by our strategic
focus on STEM and flexible
talent. Contract remained
stable, up 1%* YoY, while
Permanent was down 22%*
amidst challenging market
conditions.
Based on the market data
available to us as at theend of Q3 FY23, we haveoutperformed our peer group(on a net fee basis versus FY19)
in four out of five top markets(Germany, the Netherlands, theUK and Japan).
R*

In constant currency.

** Adjusted.

20

SThree plc

FY23 performance
SThree’s commitment todouble the size of clean energy
business has already beenachieved. In FY23, net feesfrom renewable businessgrew by 142%* on FY19.
STEM talent continued to
be in high demand among
businesses with strong plans
to mitigate climate change.
Our internal Global Renewable
Energy Network continued
to promote best practices
and guidance on how to drive
future growth within the
renewable energy sector on a
global scale.

Basic EPS increased by 4%
over the prior year; this was
attributable to the lower
operating profit offset by
net interest earned on cash
balances, lower Group ETR
and a decrease of 0.1 million in
the weighted average numberof shares.

During the assessed three-year
period (FY20 to FY23), SThree
plc’s share price remained
strong, outperforming
the basket of comparator
companies. Despite volatile
geopolitical and macroeconomic conditions
persisting in the postpandemic period, the Groupbenefitted from favourable
STEM-related megatrends
and a resilient business model,delivering a good trading
performance.

The ratio has remained
stable YoY, reflecting theongoing exceptional levelsof productivity, that despite
the challenging macro
environment dropped just
2% in the year, combinedwith tight cost control, whilst
also benefitting from spend
recognition timing on theTechnology Improvement
Programme (TIP) (without
impacting delivery). When
excluding the TIP expense of£3.8 million incurred in FY23,
the ratio would be 19.2%.

R

R

R

R
*

PBT increased by 1% on areported basis (down 2% inconstant currency basis) as
compared to FY22, due tolower trading performance,
investments made intechnology, but with stronger
YoY productivity per head
and favourable currency
movements.

In FY23, we continued to make
improvements to the energy
efficiency of our business. We
invested nearly £3.0 million tofund energy-efficient facilities
and equipment in our new
office in Glasgow, UK, andtransitioning some of ourtechnology to the cloud-based
arrangements.

R
In constant currency.

** Adjusted.

Annual Report and Accounts 2023

21

Key performance indicators continued

Strategic Report
Governance
Financial Statements

Our People

Our Position

Find, develop and retain great people

Leverage our position in STEM to deliver
sustainable value to our candidates and clients

Representation of womenin leadership roles

Employee net promoter score(eNPS)

Customer net promoter score(NPS)

Number of lives positively
impacted

This KPI is a measure of gender balance
within the Group and an indicator of
our strategic growth plans leading toa diverse leadership team. In FY23,
we reviewed the definition of womenin leadership to align with the FTSE
Women in Leadership requirements.
This KPI is therefore calculated bytaking the number of women in ExCoand ExCo -1 (excluding administrativeroles) as a percentage of the total of ourworkforce who are ExCo and ExCo -1(excluding administrative roles).

The score is the result of the annual
employee survey that captures regularfeedback from our people about theirexperience of working at SThree.
Our success is reliant on having a
motivated and engaged workforce,so our aim is to never stop listening
to, and acting upon, our people’s
feedback. eNPS helps us identify areas
for ongoing improvement so that we
can ensure SThree is a great place towork, and we attract and retain thebest people.

NPS is a metric that measures thecandidate’s and client’s (both referred
to as customer) experience whenworking with SThree and is the key
indicator of customer loyalty to theGroup. The score is the percentage ofpromoters minus the percentage ofdetractors.

The metric represents the number ofpeople whose lives since 2019 havebeen positively impacted throughinclusive recruitment solutions andcommunity programmes that SThreedelivers. We use our skills and uniqueposition to help communities finddecent, sustainable work that candeliver real social change. Our shortterm target is to positively impact
150,000 lives between FY19 and FY24.

NPS helps us measure and improvethe customer experience and draw
meaningful insights into how ourcandidates and clients view theirrelationships and engagement withour business.

Our short-term target is to achieve 40%
of women in leadership, with a longerterm ambition to achieve 50/50.
*

The comparators for years prior to FY23 areusing a definition which resulted in a larger
population being included and restating has
not been possible due to a lack of data.

39%

of women in leadership
FY23

39%

FY22

32%

FY21

L3: 34%

FY20

L3: 34% L4: 14%*-4 pts on FY22

43 ptsFY23-8 pts on FY22
FY23
FY22

L4: 14%*48 ptsFY21

43 pts51 pts

R

FY23

FY22

52 ptsFY22FY21

50 ptsFY21

FY20

52 pts114,466**
88,741**
55,771**

FY20 15,764**

FY23 performance

FY20 5 pts

Our average global eNPS declined to
43 points. This is still a strong result
which allows SThree to remain within
the top quartile of professional services.
78% of all staff who completed thesurvey believe that SThree builds agreat performance culture throughrecognition, clear performance
objectives and constructive feedback,and supports its people in setting andpursuing challenging career goals.
Key themes that we need to develop
and invest in include hybrid working
environment and organisational
structure, providing our people withmore autonomy and flexibility.
R+29% on FY22

43 pts

FY23 performance
At the end of FY23, women
represented 39% of all roles within
the leadership cohort. In FY23, we
identified that 53% of our core function
leadership are women compared
to 24% of our sales leadership. We
therefore held two focus groups
with women in sales management tobetter understand their experiencein addition to conducting a full
assessment of the employee life cycleof women in sales. This has informed
an action plan for FY24.

48 pts114k lives

We delivered a
resilient performanceagainst record prioryear and challenging
macro-economic
environment.”

Our global NPS score remained
strong at 48 points given growing
complexity in the world of work andhigher customer expectations. Thisscore reflects our commitment tobuilding deeper partnerships with ourcustomers, innovating our systems (wesuccessfully launched the first trancheof the TIP in our US business), andoptimising our processes to ensure
superior service delivery for all ourclients and candidates.

Since December 2019 we havepositively impacted 114,466 lives.
This year, we remained focusedon addressing the STEM skills gap
for our clients through diversifying
the talent pipeline and contributing
to social mobility and equity in the
STEM industries we partner with.
Our new Elevate Careers programme
provided development, coaching andmentoring support to 2,754 existing
and aspiring STEM professionals in
FY23. Through our placements in FY23
alone, we helped 15,292 candidates
access decent work in STEM-relatedindustries.

R

R

Andrew Beach
Chief Financial Officer** Number of lives.

22

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Annual Report and Accounts 2023

23

Strategic Report

Strategic progress
Our Places

Strategic progress
Our Platform

Unlocking our unique potential throughUnlocking our unique potential with

data-driven
decision making

major platform
improvements

We continue to focus on the biggest
STEM markets where we are strongest
and where we can offer the most value forour clients.

Deciding where we operate is a dynamic process and we will
move swiftly to open in a new territory, or expand our market
presence, when we see opportunities for growth. Even intimes of economic uncertainty, we continue to invest in the
major markets for STEM talent.

Our presence in five of our regions alone gives us accessto approximately 73% of the total global STEM market.
We continue to outperform our competitors in most skill
verticals across our markets. Each of our regional operations
enjoys strong autonomy, enabling them to tailor services tothe specific needs of their region, but we also standardise
processes across the Group to leverage our proven sales andclient development practices.

At the beginning of the year, we unveiled a new structure
to simplify our reporting on regional performance and alignour leadership to our geographical operational clusters. Our
regional segments are DACH, Netherlands including Spain,
USA, Rest of Europe and Middle East & Asia.

Our geographical footprint
In line with our strategy of choosing to operate where we
see the biggest opportunity to win, we continued to apply adiligent approach to making investments in technology andour people across our core markets.
We are happy with our global footprint and can serve themost important global STEM markets from our current office
footprint and client coverage.
Where we feel we need to expand our presence, we will doso in a considered way, evaluating different expansion options
for serving other markets, including from our existing pointsof strength.

Utilise opportunities of enhanced platform
Improvements in our technology platform are giving us
greater quality market insights, allowing us to enhance theservice we offer our clients. We have introduced new training
to help our people add value for clients.
Plans for FY24
FY23 was all about ensuring we have the right structures,operating models, skills verticals, specialisms and global
company network to support our ‘Leader in STEM talent’positioning. Next year, with the frameworks in place, our aims
will be to:•apply data driven insights to focus market discipline,
pricing and skills vertical investments; and•enhance customer-orientated behaviour through bestpractice training.

Wherever they are in theworld, we want our clientsand candidates to recognisethat when they work with an
SThree brand, they can rely ona high level of excellence.”

Governance
Financial Statements

We began the implementation of ourTechnology Improvement Programme(TIP) this year following a successful
pilot in FY22. It will enable sustainable,scalable growth and capability that
future-proofs the business.
We presented full details of our TIP in an investor briefing
in January. Roll out began this year following a pilot in our
Houston offices in FY22.
The opportunity
We are good at what we do and have a strong business, but
we identified two specific performance improvements that
greater digitisation could bring. First, like all talent businesses,
even though we provide new hires with thorough training
and support, there is usually a period of up to 18 months
before their productivity starts to reach the levels of moreexperienced colleagues. The latest digital technology enables
us to prompt best practice at every stage of the sales process,presenting consultants with reminders of the action most
likely to achieve an optimal outcome. Also, managers can see
real-time visibility of their team members’ activity allowing
them to make supportive interventions earlier, before theoutcome of a sale is decided.
The other opportunity offered by greater digitisation is
simplifying complex, administrative processes such as thoserequired for compliance. The industry’s fastest growing
employment segment is the Employed Contractor Model(ECM) where we employ the candidate on behalf of the client.
It has grown as a share of our business and now constitutes
37% of our net fees. Providing ECM requires considerable
administrative support in order to comply with regulations indifferent territories. Digitisation can reduce the costs and time
involved and improve accuracy.

Nicholas Folkes

Chief Operating Officer (COO)
Nicholas Folkes leads the Technology Improvement Programme.
Before joining us in 2021 as Chief Technology Officer, Nicholas
had successfully run digital transformation initiatives at major
companies including G4S, Tesco and MSCI. His appointment
as COO this year allows him to represent technology at
C-suite level and demonstrates its centrality to all ouroperations planning.

Jelte Hacquebord
Chief Commercial Officer

24

SThree plc

Annual Report and Accounts 2023

25

Strategic Report

Strategic progress
Our Platform continued

Governance
Financial Statements

We’re taking the art ofrecruitment and turning
it into a science.”

Carbon reduction on
FY19

8%

Matt McManus
Managing Director US

FY22: 44%

Together, the multiple productivity improvements that result
from digital systematisation offer the potential to scale at
speed, without a correlating increase in headcount. So thereis the real prospect of a step change in our operating profit
conversion ratio and profit before tax. At the same time,
we can improve the experience and service we deliver toboth candidates and clients, giving us a strong competitive
advantage.

So far this year we have rolled out the enhanced CRM acrossthe US whilst continuing to invite feedback and identify
further potential improvement at each stage. Next year, as we
continue the implementation across our global network, there
will be further configuration enhancement in response to theexperiences of our people using it day to day. From FY25, we
anticipate our platform will be fully deployed and we will be
unlocking further potential for our business.

An improved platform also offers many benefits for
employees. Our people’s experience at work will become
more rewarding as they adopt more effective practices
more quickly. They will have access to data-driven insights,
and more-timely, focused, management guidance to direct
their sales tactics. People will be freed of much routine
administration that was holding them back from being
more productive. Put these improvements together and thepositive impact on day-to-day work should be significant. Job
satisfaction amongst new-hires and experienced hands alike
is likely to benefit, enhancing retention rates.

Reducing our CO2 impact and helping clients reduce
theirsOur main contribution to reducing global warming emissions isproviding the renewable energy engineering specialists neededby companies wanting to decarbonise their operations. Our
clean energy business increased by 28% this year which resulted
in us achieving our target to double the size of our clean energy
business by FY24 (from a FY19 baseline year). Nevertheless, wetake our own emissions seriously and seek to aim to become a
net zero operation by FY50 – see ‘Our commitment to being a
responsible business (including TCFD)’ section for more details.

Development and implementation
SThree has a distinct way of working that has proved
successful in the talent marketplace. We captured thesebehaviours and processes in a blueprint, ready for digitisation,then consulted extensively within the business, explaining therationale of the platform enhancement and discovering frommanagers what they needed the platform to do. As a result,we identified over 300 steps or ‘enablers’ in the blueprintthat have the potential to enhance real-time interactions withclients, candidates and colleagues. As our next step, we will
select the enablers with the biggest expected impact andreturn on investment, to digitalise within sales processes.

Our platform is broader than our technology system – itembraces all our operations. So we continue to look at ourown carbon emissions on our journey to becoming a net zerobusiness whilst also focusing on how we can better support
our clients with their transition plans.
We have predominantly moved to the cloud through thedigital enhancement of our platform, reducing the carbon
footprint of running our own servers. Microsoft, our major
platform supplier partner, has similarly ambitious net zerotargets to ours which will help us decarbonise our scope 3
emissions.
One of the trends we have seen this year is clients seeking
support with achieving their scope 3 emissions reduction
targets. We have responded by starting to upskill our
consultants on how to talk to clients about these topics. We
will continue to look at how we can best reduce our energy
consumption in order to meet client expectations faster.

Case study

For more information on our approach todeliver a recruitment service that adapts toour clients’ evolving needs, please see ourcase study on Real Staffing on our website:sthree.com/annual-report-2023

Although each individual enabler is not revolutionary, bringing
them together to serve as a best practice copilot for allcolleagues, seamlessly integrating with their work, is a stepchange. The data generated and analytical tools will also give
us greater insight into the customers and markets we serve.

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Annual Report and Accounts 2023

27

Strategic Report

Strategic progress
Our People

Governance
Financial Statements

Unlocking our unique potential bymaking SThree agreat place to work
SThree is a talent business. Attracting andkeeping the best talent is critical to our
becoming recognised as the leader in STEM
talent and achieving our growth ambitions.

Gender pay analysis
Since April 2017, we have been reporting our UK gender pay dataon an annual basis. This is the second year reporting our gender
pay gap on a global basis.

Before taking action, we listen. Across the year, we ran three
Employee Engagement surveys which achieved an average
participation rate of 79%. They showed us what our people
felt SThree’s strengths are and where we most needed to
improve: see table below. The global actions we subsequently
took were guided by the insights these surveys revealed.

All active employees on 30 November 2022 have been includedin the analysis. Employees from Ireland, Singapore and Hong
Kong have been excluded following the closure of these markets.

eNPS score and benchmarking
We want to make SThree the employer of choice and so ouremployee net promoter score is a key metric in measuring
progress. External factors, such as economic and politicaluncertainty, can cause scores to drop across all companies
and sectors, so the measure we study most closely is ourranking against comparable professional services companies.
There are thousands of other professional services companies
in the Peakon employee voice tool index we use. Our aim is toretain our position in the top quartile, which we comfortably
did this year.
Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DE&I) progress
Only by continuing to make progress in building a diverse,
equitable and inclusive organisation will we harness the fullrange of skills and experience required to meet the needs ofour candidates and clients. Our DE&I initiatives continued
apace this year with the aim of creating an inclusive, highperforming culture, with a focus on representation of womenin leadership.

Our methodology

Metrics we have used to measure our global gender pay gap
are: median (the middle value of a list ordered from highest to
lowest), mean (adding up all the numbers and dividing the result
by the total data points), and the proportion of employees who
identify as women and men in each quarter of the Group fromhighest to lowest paid.
This reduction in the median bonus pay gap has been driven by
a combination of more women in more senior roles, therefore
higher bonuses, and the cost-of-living payment we awarded at
the end of FY22. Nearly 60% of employees receiving this award
were women.
The remaining gap is driven by having more men than women insenior roles (despite improvements), increasing the value of theirbonuses, and by having a higher number of women in junior roles
which decreases the value of their bonuses.

Theme

Feedback and action taken
being able to see a path to advancecareer within SThree

We continue to build on our strengths through recognition, setting clear
performance objectives, and providing feedback enabling career advancement
and progression.

Hybrid working

flexibility and autonomy

As office leases end, we redesign spaces to drive collaboration and autonomy,
and to support flexible working practices. Through various communication
channels we help everyone understand local policies on hybrid working to ensure
the transition to hybrid working environment is safe, efficient and fast. Having
autonomy to deliver agreed results is important to our people and is an ongoing
focus for us.

Purposebeing able to link Group purpose
to organisational strategies andincrease teams’ relevance

Our Group Marketing team has worked hard to collate stories and case studies
from across our business, to showcase our purpose and how we bring it to life.
We have also been updating our values, which will enable our purpose and shape
our future culture.

eNPS score FY23

This year we saw a significant reduction of the SThree global
gender pay gap. The median gap moved from 16.4% to 7.3% andthe mean from 21.2% to 12.6%. This means women earn £0.93 forevery £1 that men earn when comparing median hourly pay, and£0.87 for every £1 that men earn when comparing mean hourly
pay.
This reduction in the global gender pay gap has been driven bya higher number of women holding more-mid-to-senior andsenior roles. In the upper quarter, the representation of women
increased from 37.4% to 44.4% as shown in the graph below.
At a global level, women represent 52% of our workforce, anincrease from 51% last year.
The remaining gap is primarily a result of having more men than
women in more senior and therefore more highly paid leadershiproles, and more women than men in the less senior, lower paidroles (see the below graph).
We also saw a reduction of the SThree global bonus pay gap.
The median bonus gap moved from 61.0% to 52.9%. The mean
bonus gap has remained the same as last year. This means thatwomen earn £0.47 for every £1 that men earn when comparing
median bonus pay and £0.54 for every £1 that men earn whencomparing mean bonus pay.

SThree Group gender pay gap
70.0%
62.6%

60.0%

56.0% 56.4%

56.4%

50.0%
44.0% 43.6%

Performance
cultureFindings

43.6%

55.6%

54.9%
49.3% 48.6%

45.1%

50.7% 51.4%
44.4%

40.0%

37.4%

30.0%
20.0%

43pts

10.0%
0.0%
Men
Women
Lower Quarter

Men
Women
Lower Middle Quarter
FY21

Men
Women
Upper Middle Quarter

Men
Women
Upper Quarter

FY22

Axis X shows the mix of women and men at the four different levels of pay, with ‘lower quarter’ being the lowest paid and ‘upper quarter’ being the highest paid.
Axis Y shows the proportion of women and men at the four different levels of pay, showing movements in distributions between FY21 and FY22.

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Strategic Report

Strategic progress
Our People continued

Identify women’s talent programme

274
618
10

hours of mentoring provided

hours of learning completed by Identify
participants
development opportunities

The global proportion of men and women receiving bonuses
increased this year, moving from 79.7% to 90.8%. The cost-ofliving payment we awarded at the end of FY22 increased the
proportion of employees receiving at least one bonus award
within the financial year.
Leading with Purpose roll out
We launched our new Leadership with Purpose principles
which set out the four essential roles a leader must master.
All our most senior people managers have now completed
a training programme in these principles and should beapplying them in their day-to-day management. This will drive
our business forward and provide a consistent experience forour people. We will continue to embed the behaviours acrossthe organisation to support the right culture in FY24 when
we will provide a dedicated programme for the next level ofmanagement.
Next year will also see the launch of our Sales Excellence
programme. The initial focus will be on training new staff
during their onboarding process as part of the Speed toCompetence programme, but the longer-term plan is to
involve all members of the sales team so that best practice isspread across the Group.
Identify – our women leadership programme
Now in its iteration year, a fresh cohort of 47 women joined ourIdentify programme which seeks to find and develop our future
leaders, giving them all the support they need to fulfil theirpotential. Participants come from across our global businesswith representation from every market in which we operate.

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Governance
Financial Statements

All the women have access to an external mentor through oursocial enterprise partners, Femme Palette, and benefit froma speaker series and plenty of networking opportunities. Our
Women in STEM networks in the UK, the Netherlands and the
US provide additional support for women.
Values and evolving our EVP
The focus in the second half of the year was on a review ofour values with a soft launch of newly refined value definitions
to the sales leadership in October. Alongside leadershipdevelopment and a newly defined vision, our values will
be key in shaping our culture as we grow. They set out the
behaviours and way of business that define SThree’s culture
and its distinctive appeal for both candidates and clients, aswell as being essential to making SThree a great place towork. Our values drive all our decision making and determine
our culture. They guide everything we do: leadershipbehaviour, communications, workspace design, our employee
career pathways and more. It is therefore important they areclear so that everyone at SThree understands them and theimportance of being true to our values in everything we do.
Our new internal values are:
• We are all in• We do the right thing• We build partnerships• We think big

Refinement of compensation framework forsales roles
Rewards for our sales staff are an important component of
our Employee Value Proposition (EVP), which for internal
purposes we refer to as our People Promise. So we continue
to take measures to ensure compensation and incentives
are competitive. A review of reward schemes to ensure they
are driving the right performance and behaviours is still inprocess. It will be followed by a comprehensive review of ourbenefits offering across all regions.
In addition to continuing to invest in base salaries on atargeted basis, we improved reward communications,
testing the introduction of total reward statements in
the Netherlands. To give managers clarity and achieve
consistency, we further embedded the global grading
framework by providing a detailed toolkit for HR business
partners and managers to direct their people’s compensation.
Our all-employee share incentive plan continues to be
successful with nearly four in ten employees participatingeach month.

Men
Gender diversity profile as of 30 November 2023

Women

Total

NumberBoard of Directors including Non-Executive Directors

7

4

Executive Committee

11

8

Executive Committee less 1

75

46

61%

Other employees

2,561

1,266

49%

1,295

51%

Total

2,654

1,324

50%

1,330

50%

%

Number

%

57%

3

43%

73%

3

27%

29

39%

For more information on the composition of our Board of Directors, see pages 86 to 87.

Talent management
To further build the appeal of our People Promise weintroduced a new talent management process for all staff
across all core sales and non-sales functions. It will ensure
we have the right career offering for all roles.
Retention and succession planning
Next year we plan to introduce a productivity and retention
programme to identify and address key factors that impact
our productivity and retention. Early features include new
approaches to talent acquisition and evolving our People
Promise. In FY24, we also plan to identify and codify the
success criteria for the top 30 most vital roles within thebusiness so we can invest in succession planning and thetalent management of those individuals.
Future Office programme and hybrid working
Our Employee Survey revealed strong demand for hybrid working
across the Group and a desire for access to hybrid working
options to be clearer and more equitable between offices.
We have opted for a flexible, regional-first approach to working
practices that empowers local leaders to reflect the needs ofthe culture and region. We will keep this approach under review
due to ongoing changing expectations and standards aroundworking practices. We will continue to benchmark and assess
our hybrid practices against local norms, along with internal
data on engagement and productivity, and respond accordingly.
Our future office programme provides for hybrid working: as
office leases end, we are redesigning spaces so they support
collaboration between teams.
Preparing people for platform enhancements
Our TIP is offering multiple opportunities to spread best practiceand to work in new ways that take advantage of data. Where
appropriate, there will be automation of manual processes. We
are working alongside the platform team to understand the newcapabilities and are developing initiatives to support behaviouralchange and ensure people have the skills to adopt new ways ofworking.

New Chief People Officer appointment
Sarah Mason was appointed to the new role of Chief
People Officer in April having previously worked for theGroup between 1998 and 2008, in sales and then senior
HR roles.

Case study

For more information on how we support ourpeople development, please see our casestudy on Lawrence Doe on our website:sthree.com/annual-report-2023

Annual Report and Accounts 2023

31

Strategic Report

Strategic progress
Our Position

Governance
Financial Statements

Unlocking our unique potential bymaking the most of
our powerful brands
SThree’s specialist brands are known
amongst candidates and clients fortalent provision in the key STEM skills
verticals while the SThree Group provides
standardisation across our businesses,
spreading efficiencies and best practice,and coordinating major accountdevelopment.
We have been most successful when we have had company
brands known for a particular specialism. So this year we havebeen taking steps to sharpen the specialist positioning of all
our brands.
Both candidates and clients value expertise in their specialism– be it Technology, Life Sciences, Renewable Energy or
Engineering. For candidates, it offers a real partnership, anorganisation who can guide them throughout their career. For
clients, it promises a talent provider who understands their
particular needs and can supply hard-to-find talent with theskill set they require.
The overarching SThree Group brand presents significant
additional benefits that complement the specialist recruitment
brands, providing the resources, scale and global reach toserve major clients who need talent in a variety of STEM
disciplines, often across different regions. Although we flex
to a country’s culture and respect local nuances, we also
take best practice and apply it everywhere so all customers
experience a marketing-leading service.

New structure and appointments
To raise customer awareness of the benefits of our houseof brands proposition we have been finalising plans for theestablishment of a dedicated Customer Marketing function
for implementation in FY24. This function will support ourincreasing client and candidate-focus. It will coordinate sales
and marketing teams, encouraging the sharing of insights anddeveloping a complete service for major account clients bybringing our global range of STEM expertise and candidate
relationships to play. The appointment of Jelte Hacquebord as
Chief Commercial Officer to drive this initiative, and represent
the customer at ExCo level, is evidence of our determination
to fully realise the potential of these major global clients.
Thought leadership
The main thrust of our marketing effort continues to beestablishing true thought leader status in the STEM talent
sector. Last year, the ‘How STEM World Works’ research
we commissioned attracted extensive coverage and thisyear we followed it with a new study, ‘How the STEM World
Evolves’. It was similarly well received, with 314 instances of
media coverage across press titles including Business Insider,
Associated Press and Asia One, and other numerous trade,
STEM-centric and regional publications.

Case study

For more information on how we support
our clients in talent sourcing, please see ourcase study on Computer Futures, ‘Helping
Optimal maintain their market position
through new hires’ on our website:sthree.com/annual-report-2023

Encouraging people into STEM
We rationalised several programmes designed to widen
and diversify the STEM talent pipeline for our clients under
the new banner of ‘Elevate Careers’. This outreach plays
a crucial role in positioning SThree as the leader in STEM
talent recruitment. It also meets a client need. Our clients are
increasingly coming to us for advice on how to deal with thechallenge of attracting diverse talent. Unlike other industries,
which often attract diverse candidates but face equity
challenges around promotion and development,
STEM industries have an attraction problem they need toovercome first.
Elevate Careers is a range of activities that bring communities
together to help people access and advance along clear STEM
career pathways. We co-create events with partners and bringour expertise to other events, as well as funding scholarships
for women to access development opportunities.
Volunteering
We continued to encourage all our people to takevolunteering leave and participate in local initiatives. Not
only is volunteering consistent with our values and vision to
make a positive impact and support lives, it is also something
our people are keen to do and is an important part of our
Employee Value Proposition.

Our multi-brand strategy –our ‘House of brands’ – reallydifferentiates us. All of our listedcompetitors are single brand.”Jelte Hacquebord
Chief Commercial Officer

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