Statutory Compliance

Gender Pay Gap

Leekes Retail is a family owned and operated retail business with a 125 year history trading across multiple locations in South Wales, the West of England and the Midlands. Led by our Managing Director, Emma Leeke, we pride ourselves in supplying quality products and excellent levels of service, covering everything you need for your home from kitchens & bathrooms to furniture and all the finishing touches.

We have a strong employee led brand with exciting and progressive employment opportunities for multiple professional disciplines and for colleagues looking to work full or flexible and reduced hours. This is evidenced by excellent retention rates as our colleagues recognise that they work within a business that is inclusive, fair, respectful and appreciative of all employees. 

Our recruitment and career development strategy ensures that everyone, regardless of their gender, background, race, or ethnicity have equal opportunities.

The business operates with multiple disciplines incorporating a range of professional skills such as IT, Finance, Marketing, Sales, Visual Merchandising, Buying, Human Resources, Warehousing & Logistics and Construction. 

Our breath of professional career opportunities has enabled us to create a business environment that attracts and retains a good balance of men and woman across the group and the ratio is 46.8% male employees and 53.2% female employees.

We regularly monitor remuneration by role to ensure that pay rates are governed solely by job position and not gender. Senior Management and Line Management roles across the group are well spilt between male and female and have equal salary, bonus & commission criteria. Female staff operating in the same role as male colleagues receive the same remuneration package.

Pay Gap

The data for the pay gap and pay quartiles reports covers 459 full pay relevant employees, 244 females and 215 males;

Mean females earnings are 18.7% lower than males                                                                

Median female earnings are 13.8% lower than males       

The variance for both the mean and median earnings figures is a direct reflection of the family friendly approach to working hours which the Company takes. All colleagues are supported in their approach to balancing their working and family life and in many cases, this means looking at working reduced hours. There are considerably more part-time females, 55% of total number of females employed work part time whilst only 9% of our male colleagues do.

Pay Gap Bonus Figures

The pay gap bonus figures represents the earnings over a 12 month period for 94 male and 65 female colleagues.

Mean female bonus payments are 22.86% lower than males 

Median female bonus payments are 64.57% lower than males                                     

The bonus based criteria against which male and female employees is gender neutral and is not the cause of the pay differential. This has been exacerbated both by the fact that the proportion of overall salary paid as a bonus is much higher for some job roles than for others in accordance with industry practices. At the current time there are more males in roles attracting proportionately larger bonuses than females and the Company is comfortable that its equal opportunities policy is always observed at during recruitment and promotions.

Figures are based on the financial year 2022-23 with the snapshot date being 5th April 2023.

The Leekes Retail & Leisure Group and The Welsh Government’s Economic Contract

The Leekes Retail & Leisure Group are pleased to support the Welsh Government’s Economic Contract initiative which requires businesses to demonstrate their commitment to growth, fair work, employee health & skills and reducing their carbon footprint.

There are a number of areas where we can demonstrate the support the Group gives to the aims of Welsh Government to develop businesses to meet the needs to today and to prepare for the challenges and opportunities of the future which include:

• The Group, which operates across a number of industries and locations including:

• Six retail stores trading across over 67,000 square metres.
• A 143 bedroom hotel.
• Two championship golf courses.
• A leisure club and spa.
• A wedding venue based in a Grade 1 listed castle.
• A distillery and bottling production facility is headquartered in Rhondda Cynon Taf, South Wales just a few miles from the location of the first premises used by the business when it was established in 1897.

• The Group has over 750 employees and regularly utilise over 125 subcontractors to carry out work on its behalf.
• We actively endeavour to utilise local Welsh businesses wherever possible for the supply of products and services to the Group.
• Over 80% of the Group’s employees are based within Wales, many working in the same county that they live in.
• The Group prides itself on the large number within the team who have worked for the Company over an extended length of time. There are currently 80 members of staff (over 10% of the workforce) with over 25 years service within the business, evidencing sustainable employment opportunities.
• The Company operates a family friendly policy, where flexible and part-time working requests are accommodated where ever possible.
• The Company’s recruitment and career development strategy ensures that everyone regardless of background, race, ethnicity or gender have equal opportunities.
• The breadth of career opportunities has enabled the company to create a business environment that attracts and retains a good balance of men (49%) and woman (51%).
• All new vacancies are advertised internally to ensure that all of the team are given the opportunity to develop and progress their careers.
• Performance Development Reviews are carried out across the business on an annual basis to ensure that every member of the team is given the opportunity to develop their skills and their careers.
• The Directors hold six monthly meetings with all employees to update them on the business operation, the future plans and to answer any questions personally.
• Employees are encouraged to participate in health and safety committee meetings which are held in each site on a monthly basis. These meetings cover areas such as training, promoting health and mental well being within the business and ensuring that we are operating in a safe environment.
• The Group is enrolled in the Energy Savings Opportunity Scheme. We survey all of our properties on a regular basis to identify areas of investment that can help us reduce our energy consumption and reduce our carbon footprint.  Completed projects have included migration to LED lighting, replacing inefficient heating and cooling systems with more efficient technology, investments in improved insulation, the implementation of building energy management systems to automate energy savings. 
• The Company reviews energy use on a monthly basis to identify, investigate and address any anomalous usage. 
• The Group is actively reviewing its fleet of vehicles investing in a number of electric vehicles and charging infrastructure. 
• Where the Group undertakes development works to our properties, we look to make further investment in energy saving technologies, as an example we have plans to introduce solar PV to a number of sites in the immediate future.
• The Company heavily invests in technology with a large internal software development team that work on process automation on an ongoing basis. Some of the areas of focus in recent times include automated invoice scanning and processing, paperless processing of customer orders and automated customer communication. 
• The Group continues to invest in the multiple websites we operate across our areas of operation  and are undertaking a £200,000 project migrating our transactional Leekes Retail website to a new platform offering a series of enhanced features to better serve our customers including a customer portal that enables customers to track their orders, make balance payments and book deliveries reducing the requirement for staff intervention and empowering the customer to engage with our business at their own convenience.