We owe our success to RELX’s talented employees, including technologists, researchers, event directors, product managers, data scientists and many others. They are driven by a strong sense of purpose, and they count on us to create a fair, challenging, rewarding and supportive work environment where they can achieve their potential.
Our people
At RELX, we understand that people value a sense of real purpose at work: knowing that their actions are contributing toward something positive for themselves, their colleagues, their customers, the environment, and society. The nature of our business means our people experience this in a number of ways, including advancing the rule of law, improving outcomes for patients, or helping customers achieve their goals; it’s at the heart of the relationship between RELX and its people.
Supporting our employees is a core principle. We strive to create an inclusive, diverse and collaborative workforce and an environment which encourages employees to seek improvements in all they do. We have 130 Employee Resource Groups that allow colleagues to collaborate, advocate and engage communities, furthering inclusion and diversity at RELX. We conduct annual company-wide employee opinion surveys to understand what is working well and where we can do better to support our employees’ experience. In 2023, our employee survey received responses from approximately 88% of our global employee population.
Training and development
At RELX, we provide our people with resources, tools and experiences to help them perform and grow. In 2023, we invested over $15m and more than 506,000 hours in learning and development opportunities that are regularly refreshed based on employee feedback and business impact. The effectiveness of these development options is tracked through our employee opinion survey, which monitors internal mobility and employee satisfaction with learning provision.
In 2023, we had two key cross-RELX focus areas for skills development. Knowing that people manager capability is a factor in driving employee performance and engagement, we created the Manager CORE programme to enhance manager skills. More than 800 managers participated in 2023 and rollout will continue through 2024. As a technology-driven business, we have also continued our focus on technology skills development in the year, covering topics like artificial intelligence. Learning opportunities are designed to ensure employees do not only gain knowledge, but also have an opportunity to experiment and test their capabilities.
Our CEO and executive committee members care deeply about helping our people to develop and each year work alongside other senior leaders to conduct organisational talent reviews. This is underpinned by Enabling Performance, our approach to personal development, which reviews skills and achievements and identifies opportunities for recognition and advancement. Enabling Performance encourages regular and impactful performance, development and career conversations for all employees.
Many of RELX’s most senior leaders benefit from active focus on their present and future career objectives through our Management Development Process, which involves skills assessment and the creation of a personal development plan. Progress against development plans is regularly updated to ensure that career aspirations are being met and factored into succession planning, through the annual Organisation Talent Review Process, led by the CEO and Chief HR Officer.
We offer a global mentorship programme, NetWorx, which is open to all on request. This digital mentoring platform recommends matches based on individual profiles and specific goals, creating six month long mentoring relationships. In 2023, the platform supported more than 1,800 active mentoring pairs.
Inclusion and Diversity
At the heart of our approach to inclusion, is the belief that everybody should be able to succeed and grow in a business that values them. Feeling you work for a company, a manager and a team that really sees and embraces who you are is what inclusion is all about. Inclusion is to feel heard, to be valued, to contribute and to access opportunity equally, regardless of personal characteristics. We encourage and promote diversity of all types and believe that RELX derives competitive advantage from the breadth of backgrounds, diverse perspectives, opinions and differing ways of thinking that our people bring to everything they do.
This is underpinned by our Code of Ethics and Business Conduct, where we prohibit discrimination and recruit, hire, develop, promote and provide conditions of employment without regard to race, colour, creed, religion, national origin, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, marital status, age, disability or any other category protected by law. This includes accommodating employees’ disabilities and religious beliefs and practices.
RELX Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) encourage colleagues to collaborate, advocate and engage communities, furthering inclusion and diversity at RELX. ERGs help advance a culture of inclusion, and this is further supported by allowing all employees to take two days paid time-off per year for ERG-sponsored activities. In 2023, there were 130 active ERGs and employees recorded over 19,000 ERG hours.
A highlight of our 2023 ERG activity was the Inspiring Inclusion series of virtual events, designed to help colleagues understand and embrace the diversity of our global business. More than 3,200 employees participated and external speakers included Makaziwe Mandela, a social and political justice advocate highlighting issues affecting African communities and trans activist Max Siegel.
Our 2020-2025 inclusion goals, covering all aspects of diversity, guide our efforts and in the year we progressed them through a variety of targeted initiatives.
Business area initiatives include:
LexisNexis Risk Solutions’ Ignite and Accelerate is a bespoke leadership development programme with mentoring, coaching and sponsorship for over 61 high-potential women to date, to help further their career development. Since 2019, 62% of participants have been promoted, with an 83% retention rate.
Elsevier’s Rising TIDE Internship Programme is an ongoing internship programme, where college students and recent graduates from diverse backgrounds received paid internships to join technology, product development, publishing, marketing, and finance teams. There were 24 participants in 2023. Elsevier was named best company for diversity by Comparably in the year.
LexisNexis Legal & Professional was recognised as a Best Place to Work for Disability Inclusion in the year, receiving a top score of 100 from the Disability Equality Index. The Project Empowerment scheme continued which provides global training on how to successfully embed product accessibility.
RX was awarded the Race Equality Matters’ Trailblazer status in recognition of its work to address racial inequality within the organisation through training and recruitment initiatives. It recognised RX’s actions to create a more psychologically safe environment, increase representation of people of colour in the workforce, and improve the diversity of its candidate pipeline.
Gender
In 2023, the gender diversity of our senior leader population was steady at 31% women senior leaders, while our women people managers increased from 44% in 2022 to 45%. In 2023, women comprised 40% of the Board.
We have implemented a range of initiatives to enhance career development opportunities for women, particularly those who have the potential to grow into senior leadership roles. These vary by business area but typically involve mentoring, coaching and sponsorship to support career journeys. For example, Elsevier’s Developing Talent for Gender Equity programme started in 2019, with 220 alumni to date. Individuals who have completed the programme are more likely to appear on a succession plan, be promoted or have a job move, demonstrating improved talent outcomes.
Our business relies heavily on technologists and we need to attract the best talent to support our business ambitions. We directly employ approximately 8,000 technologists, 26% of whom are women and we aim to increase that number through a variety of initiatives including the Women in Tech Mentoring programme, Tech Talent Charter and participation in events such as the Grace Hopper conference.
RELX is a signatory to the Women’s Empowerment Principles, a United Nations Global Compact and UN initiative to help companies empower women and promote gender equality. We comply with employee-related reporting requirements, and our business areas publish UK gender pay gap reports as required by UK legislation.
Race and ethnicity
Ethnic minority representation in the US and UK was 29%, two key jurisdictions which account for approximately 56% of our employee base. Ethnic minority senior leaders increased from 12% in 2022 to 15% in the year, and ethnic minority managers also increased from 19% in 2022 to 20% in 2023. At least one member of our Board of Directors is from a minority ethnic background, in line with the UK Parker Review.
We have a number of initiatives underway that focus on race and ethnicity and support career advancement including talent development programmes such as Risk’s Emerge and Evolve that provided 31 employees with coaching, leadership skills and enhanced visibility, preparing them for more senior roles. Our ongoing fellowship programme in partnership with the African Ancestry Network ERG and the LexisNexis Rule of Law Foundation selected 15 fellows from Historically Black College or University Law School Consortium students to further develop their leadership skills with support from LexisNexis colleagues.
LGBTQ+
RELX scored 97% in the 2023 Workplace Pride Global Benchmark, receiving the Advocate designation for LGBTQ+ workplace inclusion for a fourth consecutive year. We also scored 100% in the Human Rights Campaign Foundation’s 2023 Corporate Equality Index, the national US benchmarking tool on LGBTQ+ corporate policies, practices and benefits on workplace equality.
We launched the Proud to be RELX mentorship programme which brings together the LGBTQ+ community and its allies across RELX, inspiring personal growth, career development, and a greater sense of inclusion. 77 colleagues signed up for the programme, forming 38 mentoring pairs. To ensure we are recruiting diverse talent, we joined myGwork, the largest recruiting platform for the LGBTQ+ community.
We are a member of the Open for Business Coalition which constructs and promotes the economic and business case for LGBTQ+ inclusion.
Disability
Our Enabled ERGs champion disability inclusion across our business areas through training, events and mentoring. Disability Fundamentals is our online interactive training for managers and colleagues to learn about disability awareness, disclosures and accommodations. Our CEO is a signatory to the Valuable 500, a global CEO community revolutionising disability inclusion.
We continue to strengthen and embed disability inclusion for our employees. Risk launched its disability allyship track which aims to educate on what it means to be a stronger ally to the Disabled and Neurodiverse community. Elsevier launched its Enabled Mentoring Programme in 2023, a programme designed to empower individuals with disabilities and create a more inclusive work environment. Legal was recognised as a Best Place to Work for Disability Inclusion in the year, receiving a top score of 100 from the Disability Equality Index. RX partnered with health and safety and legal teams to develop an Accessible Events Survey, to help identify accessibility improvements that can be made at future RX shows.
Inclusive workplace
We have developed Ways of Working policies in the US, UK and the Netherlands to establish a framework for hybrid and flexible working that balances the needs and wishes of employees with the requirements of our business and to help managers make decisions.
We have established policies for parental leave across RELX. In the US our Modern Family Leave benefit offers up to 14 weeks of paid leave following the birth of a child or adoption and up to 8 weeks of paid leave to care for an eligible family member with a serious health condition. In the UK we have recently implemented a new parental leave policy across all business areas covering maternity, adoption, partner and shared parental leave. It applies to all, regardless of sexual orientation or gender and offers 26 weeks enhanced maternity leave and six weeks of partner leave.
Across the business, we have provided training which encompasses inclusive leadership, unconscious bias, as well as psychological safety workshops for managers and teams. We measure how psychologically safe our employees feel through regular surveys and make intranet resources available to everyone.
Health and safety
The importance of employee health and safety is emphasised in the RELX Code of Ethics and Business Conduct and in the RELX Health and Safety Policy, both available on www.relx.com. These documents commit us to providing a healthy and safe workplace for all employees, as well as safe products and services for customers. The CEO is responsible for health and safety on behalf of the Board.
We consult with employees globally on health and safety through staff and works councils and reinforce good health and safety practice through regular communications, including a dedicated intranet site with relevant information. We also hold regular Health and Safety Committee meetings.
We provide tailored health and safety training to employees and use the services of third parties to assist us in ensuring compliance with local health and safety rules and to promote best practice. This is particularly important for employees at higher risk of injury in the workplace, including those that work in our book warehouses and exhibitions. Where necessary, we engage local specialists to conduct safety reviews or air quality tests at specific locations. We also provide employee support following any incident or health concern. There were no work related deaths reported in 2023.
With a number of employees continuing hybrid working arrangements (working from both an office location and home), we provide health and safety support for both office and home working, and over 5,000 employees have completed our Healthy Working programme which includes personalised risk assessments and action plans.
We regularly monitor and ensure our buildings are maintained and comply with relevant health and safety legislation and standards, in conjunction with third parties and landlords, where appropriate.
RX has instituted an internal programme of recording, reviewing and continual learning from health and safety-related incidents to enhance safety across our events, given the safety risks during the construction and dismantling of an exhibition event. The business regularly reviews mitigations to ensure hazards are appropriately managed, and engages with local and global exhibition industry associations, working together to drive best practice and safety standards at all our events.
Well-being and support
We support the physical and mental health of our people, with dedicated health and well-being resources available to all employees including a well-being hub with free access to the Headspace mental health app, and fitness classes, as well as training courses. Additionally, we have a network of more than 90 Well-being Champions.
We offer employee assistance programmes to all our employees, providing professional counselling to help them and their family members with personal or work-related issues that may impact their health or well-being. This service is available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
Reward
We have robust and well-established reward mechanisms across RELX, with a strong emphasis on performance, fairness, equity and market competitiveness. We provide reward education for people managers across our four business areas which includes training on pay equity; they also have access to on-demand reward eLearning modules with content added to onboarding materials for new managers. In 2023, we continued our efforts to help employees understand more about reward practices with materials explaining market benchmarking and how we make sure rewards are competitive.
RELX is a Living Wage accredited employer in the UK, certified by the Living Wage Foundation. We regularly review our global salary benchmarking data, using a variety of data sources. We make adjustments based on market competitiveness and pay equity and we formally review wages at least once a year.