Human Rights Manager London, England
Job description
M&S Food is changing, and fast! We are undergoing one of the biggest transformations in retailing today to build a bigger, better, fresher food business.
From Percy Pig to the freshest M&S Select Farms produce, we grow, source, and develop our own products to give our customers family-ready food that's unbeatable on flavour and innovation.
We need motivated people who are ready to bring their whole self to work and give it their all in a fast-paced team committed to being the best. After all, this is not just food… This is M&S Food.
This is not just any role this is and M&S Human Rights Manager role. This role is key to the delivery of the M&S Foods’ Human Rights strategy, by supporting category teams, driving compliance to our Standard, building capacity with suppliers and working with relevant external partners.
Key accountabilities and measures
Act as business partner on human rights with two key categories within Foods: Convenience, Agri & Aquaculture and Ambient Snacking and Celebration, including Beer, Wines and Spirits:
- Support colleagues across food technology, commercial and NPD on human rights challenges and opportunities within the two categories, building understanding of risks and advocating for human rights in key decision-making processes
- Handle the delivery of the Human Rights Due Diligence programme with nominated suppliers in those categories, embedding HRDD into category processes and supplier Joint Business Plans
- Undertake regular supplier site visits, in the UK and sometimes internationally
- Lead on the resolution of any critical issues in the clusters, including conducting investigations
- Be a point of call for urgent media enquiries related to the categories
Lead on our strategic ‘protect’ pillar, which is fundamental to our strategy and brand integrity:
- Handle our ‘Upholding the Basics’ workstream across all clusters, driving our suppliers’ compliance with the M&S Foods Human Rights Standard
- Oversee our supplier audit compliance programme, working closely with our Sedex ETC
- Oversee our worker voice programme, working closely with the delivery partner account manager
- Co-ordinate the combined analysis of the data and insights from these programmes, to support understanding of risks and trends across categories and to feed into internal governance and external reporting
- Regularly review and revise existing policies and procedures to ensure they continue to align with our strategic priorities
- Act as thematic lead on modern slavery, handling our partnership with Stronger Together / RRT and building capacity with our suppliers to address modern slavery risks
Handle relevant workstreams under our ‘enhance’ pillar:
- Work closely with category teams on opportunities and active programmes to enhance livelihoods, especially women’s, in key supply chains, such as cocoa, wine etc.
- Ensure projects and programmes are monitored, evaluated and reported on appropriately
- Support the development of our ‘Just Transitions’ workstream, building our approach and scoping future activity
Be an advocate for human rights within the business, embedding internal engagement:
- Support internal training programme roll out to technical and commercial colleagues
- Provide 121 support for colleagues in troubleshooting and handling high risk issues
- Build ways in which we can communicate effectively with colleagues and with our customers on our key human rights messages
Continue to build supplier capacity to fulfil our Standard requirements and enable outcomes throughout the supply chain:
- Build strong working relationships with counterparts in key suppliers, and act as a port of call for the troubleshooting of any issues, providing guidance and expertise
- Support Plan A team delivery of programme of Supplier Exchanges, including facilitating and presenting as a human rights subject matter expert when needed
- Embed our existing guidance resources (e.g. Human Rights Due Diligence & Remedy Toolkit) amongst suppliers
Represent M&S with relevant external partners:
- Play an active role within priority industry collaborations relevant to the two categories (e.g. FNET, SEA Alliance, Stronger Together, ETI)
Lead our relationships with external partners relevant to the two categories
Key Skills
- Experience of working in ethical trade and human rights, most likely in a corporate environment and ideally in the food industry
- Knowledgeable about key standards, topics and challenges on human rights and responsible sourcing
- Passionate about driving progress on human rights and an ability to manage and motivate internal and external partners to support outcomes
- Experience of working with large data sets to distil key messages and trends
- Highly digitally literate, with an understanding of how to use a range of tools (PowerBI etc.) effectively
- Problem-solving thinking approach to tasks and ability to understand complex systems
- Good communications and engagement skills, with the ability to influence senior colleagues
- Experience of working with external partners (including certifiers, NGOS, and multi-stakeholder initiatives) and working knowledge of the sector
- Programme management and experience of working collaboratively
M&S is ready to push boundaries to lead the retail industry into a greener, speedier, more inspiring digital era. That’s why we’re revolutionising how we work and offering our most exciting opportunities yet. There’s never been a better time to be part of our team. Marks & Spencer aims to be an inclusive organisation, trusted and admired by our colleagues, customers and suppliers. Join us and make an immediate impact.
We are committed to an active Inclusion, Diversity and Equal Opportunities Policy, which starts with our recruitment and selection process, and we are happy to talk flexible working.
If you consider yourself to require reasonable adjustments to any part of our recruitment process, we invite you to share those requirements with us when completing your application. We will make every effort to ensure your needs are met to provide a fair and transparent process of assessment.
