Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking Statement
Sofology part of DFS Furniture PLC
Sofology is part of DFS Furniture PLC (“the Group”). As a Group the individual brands such as DFS, Sofology and Dwell have worked together to minimise the risk of Modern Slavery occuring in our Supply Chain and within DFS Furniture PLC. Our Group Modern Slavery Statement can be found using the following link.
In addition to our Group approach to Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking a further update that is unique to Sofology is contained below, highlighting some matters from the previous statement.
Since our last statement Sofology has created a tiered training system depending on the colleagues job family number (seniority within Sofology) and their job role. This will allow for more specific, meaningful training over the coming months. A tiering training system will ensure our colleagues are fully aware of the meaning of modern slavery, how to identify modern slavery as well as ensuring colleagues know how to report such cases.
In our previous Modern Slavery Statement, we made reference to our ‘talk to us’ platforms such as our whistleblowing line and the ‘text to talk’ service. These services allow colleagues to report any concerns that include issues within our supply chain and Sofology. Since publishing our previous statement we have embedded ‘talk to us’ in our culture. These platforms are now widely recognised by our colleagues - we regularly use these platforms to receive feedback to improve our processes and policies. Through colleague feedback we recognised that Sofology could make policies more readily accessible to our people, therefore we have introduced a ‘People Hub’ which serves as an internal intranet, housing all our ‘need to know’ policies such as Equal Opportunities and the Group Code of Conduct policy.
We have also launched several campaigns promoting equality, diversity and inclusion - otherwise known as ‘Soforall’ internally. Such campaigns are supporting our gender split, part time mix and the amount of BAME colleagues we have working for Sofology. By having such successful campaigns, it helps ensure modern slavery is not present within Sofology and support colleagues to identify any issues within our Supply Chain. In addition it encourages a diverse workforce regardless of a colleagues background, sex, disability etc.
Given the constraints that the COVID-19 pandemic has brought, we have utilised the time to work with the Group on consolidating our practices and to work together on new initiatives. We will continue to do this over the coming months and years.
This statement has been approved by the Board of Directors of Sofology Limited on 31st August 2021 and signed by the Managing Director of Sofology.
