Bloomsbury's Culture & Colleagues

Bloomsbury’s culture is shaped by our purpose and our people, and reflects our shared values. Our purpose inspires Bloomsbury people to be creative and innovative, and to make a difference to society through the works that we publish. Our culture enhances the spirit of cohesion and belonging amongst Bloomsbury colleagues. It is the foundation of our success.

Bloomsbury is the only major UK publisher to combine general and academic publishing. The breadth of our publishing brings together the best talent across a variety of disciplines, including expertise in digital, ebooks and audio publishing; Open Access, academic and professional publishing; working with universities and libraries; and excellence in literary fiction and non-fiction, cookery, children’s education and illustration. This diverse range of talent provides an environment where best practice is shared across different disciplines and teams. This is enhanced by the addition of new companies and publishing lists, bringing fresh talent and diverse perspectives.

Bloomsbury’s success is due to the belief, commitment and hard work of our talented employees. Our colleagues consistently demonstrate adaptability, optimism, an entrepreneurial spirit and dogged determination to capitalise on positive market trends and demand for our content. Their collaborative spirit and unwavering focus on delivering the Company’s strategic goals, despite economic pressure and an ever-changing world, are reflective of Bloomsbury’s strong, positive and vibrant culture.

The Board and senior management seek to promote a culture of partnership. This is expressed in the creativity and collaboration, inclusivity and respect, entrepreneurship and agility that underpins our culture in the support of both individual and company success.

Our inspirational authors

An important feature throughout the year is our programme of author talks. These are intrinsic to Bloomsbury’s culture and are extremely popular with our colleagues. They afford employees from across the Company, including those who do not have regular contact with authors, the opportunity to gain insight into the creative process, different approaches to writing, the author inspiration behind – and ambition for – particular titles, and the societal and cultural impact which books can have. We have welcomed authors across the breadth of our publishing including James Comey, Louise Gray, Lily Lindon, Kiley Reid and Hugh Warwick.

Author Kiley Ried

Board established culture of partnership and trust

The Board and Executive Committee are committed to fostering a culture of partnership and trust, and to making life at Bloomsbury welcoming, rewarding, engaging and productive. Bloomsbury supports individual and collective success through effective employee engagement and support, comprehensive training and development opportunities, and the implementation of reward schemes which recognise our colleagues’ contribution to Bloomsbury’s success.

Bloomsbury’s culture continues to evolve through our publishing, our HR initiatives and our work on diversity and inclusion, directed at capturing the full potential of the talented people who work at Bloomsbury and driving value for our stakeholders. Maintaining a good culture also relies on policies and procedures that equip colleagues to make the right decisions and effective channels through which to raise concerns. These include the Group’s Diversity and Inclusion and Whistleblowing Policies, and HR policies directed at preventing bullying, harassment and discrimination. Further policies are detailed on page 52 of the 2024 Annual Report.

Our Colleagues - Transforming our People strategy

There has been a transformation of Bloomsbury’s people agenda over the past four years. We are determined to nurture and develop our employees to their highest potential and to promote a working environment that is inclusive, supportive and ethical.

We want our employees to be ambassadors for Bloomsbury. We want to attract the highest-calibre employees. Fostering a positive culture and transforming the employee experience continues to be a top priority for the Company and has informed many of the initiatives taken during 2023/2024 to help our colleagues feel supported, curious and engaged.

In June 2023, Bloomsbury created the role of Group Director of People and Engagement to drive forward Bloomsbury’s employee engagement, communications, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion and Sustainability strategies and ensure that Bloomsbury continues to innovate in these important areas.

The Group Director of People and Engagement is also a member of the Executive Committee.

Employee Engagement

Bloomsbury has evolved from a London-based company into an international organisation with offices from Santa Barbara to Sydney. Bloomsbury has a hybrid working model of two days in the office, three days working remotely. A priority for 2023/2024 was to create a virtual culture that colleagues feel part of, no matter where they are working.

In 2024 we launched Diana Base, an intranet and communications platform that works for the Company we are now. We designed Diana Base around Bloomsbury’s values, mission and purpose. The new platform allows everyone to create personal profiles, join relevant ‘spaces’ such as an internal network (see pages 54 to 55 of the 2024 Annual Report for our employee networks) or group (for example Bloomsbury Leadership Group), give shouts and post updates. Diana Base is colleague-led, allows everyone to contribute and empowers everyone to help grow the platform into an active virtual communications space, where ideas and successes are easily shared.

We continue with monthly global Town Halls which are hosted alternatively by the Chief Executive and Executive Committee Members, presenting Company strategy, business news and issues across the industry and reporting on Group-wide initiatives. These meetings had an average attendance of 46% in 2023/2024 (2023: 59%) with some focused on one geographic area such as India and Australia and a wider range of more specific topics covered including sustainability, social media and a recent Town Hall on the impact of AI.

Our twice-annual global Bloomsbury Publishing Highlights event brings colleagues together from all areas of the business to present and celebrate upcoming publishing plans and the most exciting titles in the pipeline. Finally, our weekly global employee- generated newsletter, the ‘Illustrated Bloomsbury News’, focuses on Company news, initiatives and updates, as well as celebrating achievements for colleagues, authors and books. The introduction is written by the Chief Executive in which he shares highlights of his working week.

We recognise the importance of a culture built on open engagement and information sharing, and Bloomsbury has in place a wide range of channels to engage with employees and keep them informed about business performance, HR policies, training and development opportunities and other matters which concern them.

A key element of our engagement strategy is our Employee Voice programme, which promotes an open dialogue between those that work for Bloomsbury and the Executive Committee and Board. Employee Voice Meetings (“EVMs”) are held routinely throughout the year, with a selection of employees from different levels across the Group being invited to attend scheduled meetings by rotation. Colleagues are encouraged to share their views on Bloomsbury as a publisher and employer. These meetings provide every employee of Bloomsbury with the opportunity to share their views on anything from Bloomsbury’s strategy, communications, training, compensation and benefits, to ideas on how to make Bloomsbury a better place to work. The Group Director of Engagement, who is a member of the Executive Committee, chairs the Employee Voice Meetings;

Non-Executive Directors are also invited to attend. Employees share their views on the understanding that matters discussed will not be attributed to particular individuals in reports on meeting outcomes, which are provided to the rest of the Executive Committee and the Board. The Executive Committee and the Board receive the minutes of EVMs on an anonymous basis, together with a list of the key themes arising out of EVMs.

This form of engagement with employees across the Group enables senior management and the Directors of Bloomsbury to keep a finger on the pulse of the organisation and to gain unfiltered feedback from employees. The Board and the Executive Committee discuss and approve new policies and actions based on the views expressed at these meetings.

EVMs also provide an effective means for the Board and senior management to monitor the Company’s culture in order to ensure that it aligns with the Company’s values and purpose, and continues to support the delivery of the Company’s strategy.

Employee empowerment - providing a framework to progress

A lunchtime author talk in Bloomsbury's London office

A key programme for 2023/2024 was the establishment of a Senior Leadership Team, 50 individuals, across every area of the business. These senior leaders are helping to shape the future of Bloomsbury and are an essential part of helping to transform our people strategy.

A transparent and fair pay and grading structure underpins every successful reward scheme and career progression programme, and in 2023/2024 Bloomsbury rolled out its Career Framework initiative to all employees in the US and UK.

The Bloomsbury Career Framework provides a clear and visible structure that shows individual levels of work and hierarchy of roles. It ensures fair and transparent pay decisions, helps to monitor diversity, and provides the foundations for everyone to build their career pathway. It provides the foundation for employees to have a fulfilling career, with opportunities to develop and gain experience in their role, while also supporting those who want to progress and find their way into new positions within the Company.

The rollout comprised four stages:

Stage one: Job Evaluation – our roles were put through a rigorous process of job evaluation, independently reviewed and calibrated across the Company.
Stage two: Job Families – within the Career Framework, Bloomsbury established four different Job Families representing all areas of the business.
Stage three: Job Level – each role was assigned a Career Level and a pay range within its relevant Job Family.
Stage four: Pay Ranges – internal salaries were benchmarked alongside external data across the publishing industry and the broader media industry. Salary ranges were then developed and roles were adjusted where they fell below the entry point of the salary range. All roles are now advertised with a published salary for better transparency.

Reward

Being recognised and fairly rewarded is important to colleagues everywhere; fair pay brings benefits for families, communities and our business. The implementation of the Bloomsbury Career Framework has provided a clear and visible structure that shows individual levels of work and hierarchy of roles, ensuring fair and

transparent pay decisions. During 2023/2024 employees received:

Company Annual Salary Review awarded a 4% salary increase from 1 March 2024
Recognising our exceptional success in 2023/2024, every employee has received a one-off lump sum payment of £1,250, in addition to the Group wide bonus scheme.
Bloomsbury paid every eligible employee the maximum bonus payment of 6% of their salary in respect of 2023/2024. Bloomsbury employees participate in the Group bonus scheme, which is based on the achievement of Group profit targets set at the beginning of the financial year.
In the UK, employees are eligible to participate in an employee HM Revenue & Customs approved Sharesave scheme to enable employee participation in the performance and growth of the Group.
In the UK, we have increased our starting salary ranges from £25k to £27k and from $45K to $47.5K in the US.
All our employees, in the UK and US, now benefit from being within the same pay ranges and Oxford salaries have been brought into line with London.

Colleagues at Company Highlights in September 2023

A great place to work

Like many other organisations, the way we work has evolved following the pandemic. Our hybrid working arrangements, introduced after the end of lock-downs, support work-life balance for Bloomsbury colleagues. Colleagues work a full day, with
core hours to allow for flexible start and finish times, enabling colleagues to balance wider personal and family responsibilities with their work. Our hybrid working policy is based on two days in the office and three days at home per week.
Our annual leave policy grants all employees paid holiday between Christmas and New Year to allow for a restorative year end break.
We actively promote a culture that places importance on mental health. All employees are entitled to take two paid Personal Wellness Days per annum in support of mental health and wellbeing, an initiative introduced during the pandemic which we have made a permanent benefit. Our employees have used over 75% of the available Personal days and we plan to extend the definition so as to encourage even higher take up.
Our global Employee Assistance Programme supports employee wellbeing and mental health. Provided by Workplace Options, the programme gives all employees free access to counselling and support for work and personal issues. We have trained members of staff across our London and Oxford offices to be Mental Health First Aiders. These members of staff are equipped to provide confidential peer-to-peer support and guidance to those in need and help us build a mentally healthy workplace.
In the UK, we rolled out private medical insurance and automatically enrolled all employees into the AXA Health Scheme with Bloomsbury covering the full cost of the Healthcare Plan. This benefit was introduced in response to engagement with colleagues and was well-received by UK employees.
Globally, we offer free access to appointments with two Company doctors, general practitioners, providing no-barrier access to medical advice for all staff.
Our parental leave policies promote gender equality and recognise the need to balance career progression with personal and family life. They include enhanced shared parental leave and an increased period of discretionary Company maternity and adoption leave pay.

Creating a culture for curious minds - Learning and Development

We want to model brilliant leaders and unleash their potential, setting the foundations for a culture that fuels and inspires curious minds. This means a laser focus on learning and development, ensuring that the working day is not separate and is part of a culture of continuous learning.

Our learning and development programme is now focused into three key areas:
Brilliant leaders: Greater emphasis on management development and first-time manager courses;
Long-term careers: Bespoke ‘Career Pathway’ development routes; internal recruitment and mobility focus;
Culture of Continuous Learning: Foundation training; annual development programme for cohort of early career employees;
A focus on learning including talent builder courses for managers, career focus and progression and The Publishing Training Centre courses.

Key policies not outlined in the preceding pages are set out below:

Employment policy	Description
Health, safety and wellbeing	Bloomsbury’s Head of Facilities reports to the Director of People and Engagement in respect of health and safety (“H&S”) and heads an H&S team that ensures compliance with the Company’s H&S policy. At least annually, the Board and the Executive Committee review H&S, including risk assessments, developments and incident reports. The H&S team works closely with management and employees to ensure that the H&S policy is effectively communicated, implemented and maintained across the business. Managers of the worldwide sites are accountable for ensuring their areas of the business are in compliance with H&S policy. The Group maintains H&S risk assessments and accident books for all its locations worldwide (including where there is no local legal requirement to do so) and staff are encouraged to report all accidents or near misses. During the year, there were no serious injuries, fatalities or reportable incidents.
Performance and Merit	Senior managers are accountable for the performance of their teams and determine the most appropriate approach to performance management for each team. All employees participate in Bloomsbury’s formal annual appraisal process, which serves as a mechanism for managing performance and identifying opportunities for career development. Promotions and external recruitment are based on merit and ensure that the most suitable person is selected for each position.
Human rights	Bloomsbury is committed to meeting its responsibility to respect human rights and to comply with employment and other legislation applicable to the locations in which it employs people, ensuring the human rights of individuals are protected. Bloomsbury’s Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking Statement can be found on our investor relations website www.bloomsbury-ir.co.uk.
Ethical behaviour	We expect employees, Directors and subcontractors to behave ethically in their work relationships and dealings with third parties on behalf of Bloomsbury. Compliance with ethical behaviour Group policies such as for antibribery and corruption, dealing in Bloomsbury shares and modern slavery and human trafficking is an employment term of Group employment contracts. Bloomsbury’s Whistleblower policy enables employees, other categories of workers and third parties to have any concerns relating to the Group confidentially addressed. Details of these policies can be found at www.bloomsbury-ir.co.uk.
Equality of opportunity	Bloomsbury has a diverse workforce and follows a policy that no employee or other person receives more or less favourable treatment on the grounds of gender, sexual orientation, colour, race and ethnic origin, nationality, religion, disability or age. The Human Resources function monitors compliance with the policy and with applicable legislative requirements to ensure the equality of opportunity in the recruitment, selection and promotion of employees. Grievance and disciplinary procedures protect employees from discriminatory behaviours and attitudes. Further information on our approach to diversity and inclusion is set out on pages 53 to 56 of the 2024 Annual Report.