1. Sports Direct has softened its stance on zero-hours contracts and will now offer its directly employed casual retail workers an alternative. Staff can either opt to remain on zero-hours contracts, or sign new deals that will guarantee them a minimum of 12 hours’ work per week.
  2. Agency workers at Sports Direct’s Shirebrook warehouse, of which there are 4,059, will not be given the opportunity to take a permanent contract. Instead they will remain on “336 contracts”, although these will also be reviewed.
  3. Sports Direct has a long-term plan in place to improve access to its Shirebrook warehouse, after workers were effectively paid below the minimum wage due to excessive queuing time at security bottlenecks. The retailer revealed that plans to build a new security suite were progressing prior to the parliamentary inquiry and said the building was now fully operational.
  4. Sports Direct will also no longer search all of its warehouse staff to further reduce queuing times. Agency managers will instead search 10 random staff members per shift, while six staff will be searched by security.
  5. The controversial “six strikes and you are out” policy for staff will be recommended to agencies for removal “as soon as possible.” Sports Direct admitted this had “serious shortcomings” and said “alternative systems” will be considered “to create a fit for purpose system that balances treating staff with dignity, respect and fairness and ensuring the business can deliver for its customers.”
  6. RPC’s report revealed that Sports Direct had “no formal signed contract” in place with either of the agencies it uses. The retailer described this as “a serious failing given the importance of these agreements in relation to employment practices and [Sports Direct’s] financial value.”
  7. Sports Direct has written a new Tannoy policy after some warehouse staff said they had heard it being used to point out performance shortcomings. The report said the new policy would be “deployed imminently” and compliance with the new rules would be “monitored on an ongoing basis” via spot checks.
  8. League table notice boards that benchmarked performance of warehouse pickers using their personal identification numbers will be scrapped. In their place, Sports Direct will use six-weekly tables that highlight the top 500 performing workers in the areas of picking rates and web processing rates. The retailer will dish out prizes to the top three performers in each category each week.
  9. Following concerns about the health and wellbeing of staff – including reports that ambulances were called to the warehouse on 76 occasions in the space of just two years – Sports Direct has pledged to create “a Welfare Budget”. It said a nurse will be available from 8am until 4pm, while a welfare officer will also be hired for staff to discuss health issues confidentially. The budget will also “provide contingency funds without red tape” if staff members urgently require help and assistance.
  10. A bespoke confidential hotline will be created to allow staff to report any instances of bullying and sexual harassment.
  11. Sports Direct has “dramatically” simplified a list of brands that its warehouse workers are not permitted to wear, from around 800 down to “a core list” of 30 brands.
  12. The retailer’s chief executive Dave Forsey “was requested to forego his share bonus entitlement”, worth around £3.6m, after he took responsibility for the “shortcomings” at Shirebrook.
  13. Since the parliamentary hearing on June 7, which prompted the report, Sports Direct founder Mike Ashley has met with unions on four separate occasions.
  14. The Sports Direct board will now hold a “focused review of press coverage” at its meetings following the scandal.

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