WHSmith

Strength in diversity! To support and champion inclusion and diversity this Black History Month, our Race and Culture Network have worked with the business to create a series of fantastic events, educational resources and newsletters to highlight stories of Black heritage, correct historical inaccuracies, celebrate Black excellence, and shine a light on stories that have often been overlooked. This month, we will also hear from a panel of our colleagues who will educate our teams, talking through lived experiences, on what it’s like to be Black and living in the UK today. Committee member Evelyn Taire shares how the Network is driving this important work throughout the month and beyond. #ForEveryJourneyTheresAWHSmith #BlackHistoryMonth #InclusionWorkIsNeverDone

Barista (noun). A skilled person specially trained in the making and serving of coffee drinks to customers ☕ Today is International Coffee Day and over an early morning latte, we spoke to Josh, a Barista Maestro at our District Market Coffee café in Sheffield Northern General Hospital. He tells us about his role and his passion for coffee – while he showed off his superb coffee machine skills. Cappuccino anyone? 😍 We’re proud to employ Baristas in many of our different store and café formats across the UK and globally, helping customers get their morning americano on the go. Interested in joining WHSmith? Explore career opportunities: https://lnkd.in/eq7Yc-uX

Last week, we brought together our incredible High Street teams from across our stores and support centres for our annual colleague conference. It was all about celebrating the amazing people who make everything happen! We took time to reflect on the year’s achievements and looked ahead to the most magical time of year… Christmas! 🎄 The countdown has officially begun, and we’re ready to make this holiday season the best one yet! Thank you to everyone who joined us – your passion, hard work, and energy have set us on the path to making this Christmas truly magical! 🎅 #ForEveryJourneyTheresAWHSmith

New store openings for WHSmith in North America!   A huge shout out to our teams across the Atlantic who have opened a number of new stores and concepts right across USA and Canada in recent months. Already the second largest market for WHSmith outside the UK, we’re excited to see the range of brands and store formats from WHSmith expanding to more customers across the continent. Well done team WHSmith North America

Pride and progress! At WHSmith, we believe that true inclusivity goes beyond words - it’s about taking action to champion diversity. That’s why many of our colleagues and teams have been turning out in numbers to support different community Pride events in recent months. In the UK this included sponsoring two major Pride events, with colleagues from stores and support centres coming together to help make the events a large and inclusive success. And the celebration didn’t stop there – WHSmith colleagues showed up for events all across the globe. But this is only one step on a journey to building inclusive communities. Driven by our colleague Pride Network and with the support from our Exec Sponsors, at WHSmith we’ll continue to promote and celebrate diversity and strive for a future where everyone can live authentically, not just during Pride, but every single day. #ForEveryJourneyTheresAWHSmith #NationalInclusionWeek #Pride2024 #PrideIsntJustForPrideMonth 

No career journey is a straight line… At WHSmith, we’re a business full of ambition for our people. We want to help them grow and progress and we do this by offering a wide range of choice and options for them to take their next step with us whether in the UK or overseas. We’re proud to have launched our new internal careers site this year – ‘MyJourney’ – and this offers just that. Whether a colleague is getting started, or maybe they’ve been part of the Group for some time and fancy a change of career path, we’ve got many different roles available to anyone looking to progress their career as we continue to grow our business and expand overseas. We’re here to make every career journey better. Looking to join us? You can find all our current roles on WHSmithcareers.co.uk #foreverycareerjourneythereswhsmith #careerprogression #retail

🦒 Exciting news for all toy lovers, we’re bringing Toys“R”Us to even more of our high street stores before Christmas! 🎄 We exclusively opened the first Toys“R”Us shop-in-shop in the UK in 2023, growing to 39 different locations today - but we’re not stopping there! With a further 37 shop-in-shops opening in the coming weeks, we’re bringing the latest toys and games to more families and customers across the country, starting with Bexleyheath, Eastbourne and Southampton next Saturday, 28th September. Get ready for endless fun and imagination with our fantastic range of Toys“R”Us products. Whether it’s for playtime, birthday gifts, or just because - at WHSmith, we’ve got you covered! 🎁 Watch the highlights from the grand opening of Toys“R”Us at WHSmith Fosse Park earlier this year 👇 and find out more about our upcoming Toys“R”Us shop-in-shop openings here: https://lnkd.in/ebjEdG7N. Let the adventures continue! 🚀🧸 #ForEveryJourneyTheresAWHSmith

The last few weeks has seen us open four new stores in four different formats in hospital locations across the UK, bringing essential products and services to where our customers need them most. From a Costa Coffee in Colchester, to Smith’s Kitchen in Southampton, an M&S Food in Cardiff, to our WHSmith format in West Cumberland. Our dedicated teams are on hand to support patients, staff and visitors. We're proud to be where it matters, when it matters. #ForEveryJourneyTheresAWHSmith 

This week, we’re delighted to welcome our new graduates as they kick off their exciting journey with us. Through our graduate programme, they’ll explore different areas of our global business, gaining invaluable experience along the way. Best of luck to the class of 2024! Follow us to watch them grow into our future leaders.   #ForEveryCareerJourneyTheresAWHSmith

This morning, we issued our Pre-close Trading Update. Our CEO Carl Cowling said: “We have ended the financial year in a strong position, delivering a performance in line with our expectations with good growth across our Travel businesses. Our UK division performed particularly well over the peak summer trading period. “Our colleagues have worked extremely hard to deliver these results over what has been a very busy summer, and I would like to thank them for their contribution to the Group’s success.” Today we’ve also announced the launch of a £50m share buyback. Read more in our full statement here 👉 https://lnkd.in/ehCrvMHQ   Our preliminary results for the year ending 31 August 2024 will be announced on 14 November 2024.   #ForEveryJourneyTheresAWHSmith