Social
We are committed to the wellbeing and development of our colleagues. This is supported by the provision of an engaging, diverse and inclusive environment, where equity practices are promoted throughout the colleague lifecycle.
Through our partnerships, our influence on wellbeing and equity extends beyond our colleagues to encompass those within our broader communities.
Our social strategy is brought to life across three pillars and a number of supporting focus areas:
Creating equitable & inclusive workplaces for our colleagues & customers
Focus areas:
- Pursue gender equity
- Implement equitable processes and operating procedures
- Foster inclusive behaviours and recruitment practices
Targets
- Create equitable and inclusive workplaces for our colleagues and customers
- 40% gender balance in leadership and management roles by 2024 and 50% by 2026
FY23 Highlights
- Defined our ED&I strategy
- Created three ED&I focused ERGs, including for female identifying colleagues (‘Limitless’) & our LGBTQIA+ community
- Became members of Inclusive Employers
- Collected & analysed our diversity data
- Ran internal & external ED&I education & awareness programmes
- Consultancy training focused on inclusive leadership & inclusive recruitment practices
FY24 Next Steps
- Review our family-focused policies
- Continue embedding inclusive recruitment practices throughout our operations
- Raise awareness of underrepresented groups, drive impactful change & educate our colleagues
- Set targets against the proximity to power of internal underrepresented groups, including complementing our gender parity commitment
- Continue our positive contribution to ED&I within the recruitment industry as a whole
Promoting the health, wellbeing & development of our colleagues
Focus areas:
- Promote and support colleague mental, physical, financial and social wellbeing
- Enable the continuous development of our people
Targets
- Improve early recognition of the need for and access to wellbeing support
- Ensure our people have the skills they need to support our clients and candidates
FY23 Highlights
- Trained additional Mental Health First Aiders, taking total to 16
- Placed on the Staffing Industry Analysts ‘Best Staffing Firms to Work For’ 2022 list based on employee feedback
- Raised company-wide employee engagement score from 7.6 to 8.1
- 5,920 total training & coaching hours, including 388 hours exec coaching, 235 hours management & leadership training & 3 external guest speakers
- 360 review programme for Sales Managers, informing FY24 training programme
- Re-designed trainee sales academy into Onboarding for Success programme
FY24 Next Steps
- Increase early take up of mental health assistance programme through embedding our current offering within the business
- Upskill our managers & leaders in mental health awareness
- All sales managers to complete newly updated and improved manager capabilities programme
- Launch & embed Onboarding for Success programme for all hires
Positively impacting our philanthropic communities & partnerships
Focus areas:
- Local and corporate partnership support and fundraising activities
- Increase presence in forums driving change on social and environmental issues
Targets
- Raise £100,000 for the charity Foothold (mental health & wellbeing charity for engineers and technologists)
- Help 1,000 socio-economically disadvantaged young people access work experience and gain employability skills via charity partnerships
FY23 Highlights
- Hit 23% of our fundraising target for our charity partner, Foothold, including funding a Mental Health Wellbeing Hub for engineers
- Created new partnerships with AFBE, Portsmouth Pride & The Talent Tap
- Supported UTC Southampton’s successful application for a new technical college
- Relaunched volunteering scheme for colleagues, matching up to 2.5 days of annual leave
FY24 Next Steps
- Active sponsorship of external partners to raise awareness of their services amongst our communities & demonstrate progression towards our targets
- Establish metrics & targets to improve the management & reporting of our philanthropic contribution
- Develop a bespoke programme with The Talent Tap to support socio-economically disadvantaged young people within STEM
Goals
Our priority target to help us create equitable & inclusive workplaces for our colleagues & customers is:
Achieve gender equity in manger and leadership roles by 40% by 2024 and 50% by 2026.
FY23 Highlights
- Definition of ED&I strategy
- Created 3 ED&I ERG’s highlighting our ED&I, Limitless (Female identifying) and LGBTQIA+ colleagues
- Became members of Inclusive Employers
- Internal & external education & awareness programme
- Collection & analysis of diversity data
- Inclusive consultancy training for leadership & recruitment practices
FY24 Next steps
- Inclusion matters, as a business we aspire to ED&I being embedded in everything we do. In addition to reviewing our family focussed policies over the coming months we have committed to two major shift changes within our organisation
- Continued Inclusive Leadership development
- Continued Inclusive Recruitment
- We are also committed to raising awareness to underrepresented groups within the organisation, drive impactful change and educate our colleagues
- Set targets for underrepresented groups proximity to power across the organisation
Goals
Our priority target to help us promote the health, wellbeing & development of our colleagues is:
To introduce early recognition of the need for health & wellbeing support, access to internal & external assistance.
FY23 Highlights
- Trained additional Mental Health First Aiders, taking total to 16
- Placed on the Staffing Industry Analysts ‘Best Staffing Firms to Work For’ 2022 list based on employee feedback
- Raised company-wide employee engagement score from 7.6 to 8.0
- 6,765 total training & coaching hours, including 388 hours exec coaching, 235 hours management & leadership training & 3 external guest speakers
- 360 review programme for Sales Managers, informing FY24 training programme
- Re-designed trainee sales academy into Onboarding for Success programme
FY24 Next steps
- Our current offering is significant; spanning the areas of mental, physical, financial and social wellbeing. Over FY24 we want to focus on how we can better embed our offering within the business to improve accessibility and take-up
- We also want to continue the focus on enhancing our mental health provision, specifically upskilling our management community in mental health awareness; enabling them to recognise the early signs of mental ill-health, initiate conversations and signpost our offering