We owe our success to our people. They are driven by a strong sense of purpose, and a supportive work environment where they can achieve their full potential.
What makes RELX special
Our people tell us, through our annual employee opinion survey, that they are engaged, motivated and committed and believe RELX is a great place to work. We attract and retain talented people, including those whose skills are in high demand.
Our competitive advantage is driven by our purpose, culture, talent and a combination of behaviours and attributes, including:
- Knowing our products and exactly how they add value for our customers
- Understanding emerging technologies and how they might be used to add more value
- Being thought leaders
- Being intellectually curious and eager to learn
- Being fact based, analytical and data driven
Driving performance through culture
In RELX we have a culture of individual ownership and accountability. We set an expectation that everyone should take ownership and be accountable for their actions, decisions and outcomes. Everyone is encouraged to seek never-ending performance improvement in every aspect of what they do, driving execution and achieving results.
This is underpinned by defined and measurable goals for everyone, as part of our Enabling Performance approach to performance measurement and personal development.
Enabling Performance allows us to review achievement of goals and identify opportunities for development, recognition and advancement. It encourages regular and impactful performance, development and career conversations for all employees.
We recognise the value of leadership, whatever stage of career someone is in: whether this is their first role, or whether they are leading an entire business area. We have a common language and approach to leadership in RELX. For our senior leaders this is backed up with specific behavioural expectations that will help them successfully navigate their careers in RELX. Exceptional leadership is the cornerstone of success at RELX.
Our commitment to careers
RELX employees are expected to understand their own strengths and areas for improvement and take individual ownership of and accountability for pursuing their own personal development.
We ask everyone to proactively look for opportunities to build their career. We aim to provide our people with resources, tools and support to help them perform and grow. In 2024 we invested over $15m and 500,000+ hours in training. This included courses, seminars, one-to-one instruction and tuition reimbursement.
We are focused on helping our people build skills for the future such as data analytics, product and technology development (including AI), and product ownership and management.
Our CEO and the RELX business leaders care deeply about helping our people to develop and actively participate in regular organisational talent reviews that consider development needs and opportunities at an individual level.
We also offer a global mentorship programme, NetWorx, which is open to all, on demand. This digital mentoring platform recommends matches based on individual profiles and specific goals, creating six month long mentoring relationships. In 2024, the platform had more than 3,300 active users.
Integrity at the heart of our business
We embrace integrity and high ethical standards and our RELX Code of Ethics and Business Conduct provides the guidance needed to make ethical business decisions. It explains how we should behave in the workplace and marketplace and describes how each of us should handle various legal and ethical matters, providing helpful scenarios. The principles set out in our Code of Ethics and Business Conduct are firmly embedded in the company and we strongly encourage employees to speak up if they are concerned about potential breaches. We have a number of channels they can use, including our Integrity Line. In 2024 372 concerns were raised and investigated, or are in the process of being investigated. We see this as an important factor in ensuring that our actions are in the best interests of our company, employees, customers and shareholders.
Harnessing our diverse talent
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. Inclusion means feeling heard, contributing equally, with equal access to opportunity – regardless of personal characteristics. We encourage and promote diversity of all types and believe 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.
RELX Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) encourage colleagues to collaborate, advocate and engage communities, furthering inclusion and diversity. ERGs help advance a culture of inclusion, and this is recognised by allowing all employees to take two days paid time-off per year for ERG-sponsored activities. In 2024, employees recorded over 22,400^ ERG hours.
In 2024, the gender diversity of our senior leader population increased to 32%, while our women people managers increased from 45% in 2023 to 46%. At year end, women comprised 40% of the Board. Non-Executive Director, Bianca Tetteroo serves as our Workforce Engagement Director.
Our business relies heavily on technologists and we need to attract the best talent to support our business ambitions. We directly employ more than 8,500 technologists, 26% are women and we aim to increase that percentage through a variety of initiatives including a Women in Tech Mentoring programme.
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 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 clients. 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 designated 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 warehouse, facilities and sales employees who regularly lift or carry products. In the US, we engage a third-party specialist to inspect locations that had high incident rates in the previous year. We also provide employee support following any incident or health concern. There were no work related deaths reported in 2024 and our frequency rate (lost time incidents per 200,000 hours worked) was 0.02. The majority of lost time incidents were the result of slips, trips and falls, followed by equipment or tool use and manual handling or repetitive strain.
With many employees continuing hybrid working, we provide support on health and safety issues for both office and home working. Over the last two years 6,400 employees have completed the training through our Healthy Working programme which includes personalised risk assessments and action plans.
We 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.