Corporate Social Responsibility Report 2014
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CORPORATE RESPONSIBILITY REPORT <strong>2014</strong>
Overview<br />
In many ways, 2013 was a breakthrough year for<br />
Society. During the space of 12 months we grew<br />
our turnover by 60% and our headcount by 40%,<br />
unlocking new sectors along the way, and making<br />
some genuinely noteworthy appointments for our<br />
clients. Such a frenetic pace of growth presents<br />
significant challenges for any firm though. Many of<br />
the goals we set ourselves a year ago have been<br />
achieved, but others have had to be postponed or<br />
adapted. Such is the reality of life as a small<br />
business!<br />
This document is Society’s second <strong>Corporate</strong><br />
<strong>Responsibility</strong> <strong>Report</strong>, and we intend to keep<br />
producing updates of this nature on an annual<br />
basis. For us, <strong>Corporate</strong> <strong>Responsibility</strong> is a<br />
journey, not a destination. We will keep<br />
challenging ourselves to improve and to develop.<br />
And we will keep being honest about where we<br />
have succeeded, and where we have fallen short.<br />
Over the following pages, we have outlined how<br />
we plan to continue approaching the themes of<br />
Community, Workplace, Marketplace and<br />
Environment. For each theme, we have<br />
highlighted some of the recent achievements on<br />
our journey, and spelled out some of the<br />
commitments to which we aspire in the future.<br />
We hope that this report proves interesting, and<br />
we would welcome any comments or thoughts you<br />
might have about the way in which we are<br />
developing our business.<br />
Simon Lucas<br />
Managing Director<br />
“Society will be the retained recruitment<br />
partner of choice for responsible<br />
businesses and purpose-driven<br />
organisations.”<br />
Our Mission Statement<br />
“We will bring about positive change,<br />
through helping to place exceptional<br />
people into roles where they can make a<br />
impact on the wider world.”<br />
Our Vision<br />
We believe that Society’s key social<br />
impacts are:<br />
• the quality of the appointments we<br />
help our clients to make, and the<br />
impact those individuals<br />
subsequently have in-post;<br />
• the integrity with which we help<br />
candidates to define and to attain<br />
their career objectives;<br />
• the way in which we look after, and<br />
develop our colleagues;<br />
• the extent to which our business<br />
consumes resources, and the size of<br />
our carbon footprint;<br />
• the impact and longevity of our work<br />
in the community;<br />
• the leadership we show within the<br />
wider recruitment industry on issues<br />
of responsibility, ethics and<br />
sustainability.<br />
We believe that Society’s key<br />
stakeholders are:<br />
• our clients;<br />
• our candidates;<br />
• our colleagues;<br />
• our suppliers;<br />
• our wider community;<br />
• the recruitment industry at large.
Recent highlights:<br />
• We have taken part in four<br />
consecutive ‘Give & Gain Days’, and<br />
we were one of the national sponsors<br />
of the event in both 2013 and <strong>2014</strong>.<br />
• We have created a menu of one-day<br />
activities that colleagues can select<br />
from if they need inspiration for how<br />
to spend their volunteering<br />
entitlement.<br />
• We have hosted a summer work<br />
experience placement for the past<br />
four years.<br />
• We have implemented a system of<br />
Payroll Giving with assistance from<br />
the Charities Aid Foundation (CAF).<br />
• We have created a menu of charity<br />
gifts that we send to placed<br />
candidates immediately following<br />
their appointment, so that they can<br />
choose a cause for us to support in<br />
their name.<br />
Future commitments:<br />
• We will become champions for skillsbased<br />
employee volunteering,<br />
showing through our actions how<br />
businesses can deliver meaningful<br />
benefit to community groups by<br />
undertaking activities that play to<br />
their core competencies.<br />
• We will continue to be prominent and<br />
vocal supporters of Give & Gain Day,<br />
expanding our own involvement<br />
through seeking the participation of<br />
clients and candidates.<br />
• We will continue hosting summer<br />
work experience placements, but<br />
adapt our scheme so that we can link<br />
it into Business in the Community’s<br />
Ready to Work programme.<br />
• We will increase the number of<br />
colleagues taking advantage of<br />
payroll giving.<br />
• We will encourage charitable<br />
fundraising efforts amongst<br />
colleagues and, where appropriate,<br />
commit the business to match-fund<br />
what colleagues have raised.<br />
• We will provide added support and<br />
flexibility for colleagues looking to<br />
take on charity Trustee or school<br />
Governor commitments.<br />
Community<br />
The central focus of Society’s community activities<br />
has always been employee volunteering. We<br />
consider employee volunteering to be a great way of<br />
delivering benefit to our community, whilst also<br />
strengthening our business. Colleagues find our<br />
team volunteering days to be an energising and<br />
morale-boosting experience, and we have found that<br />
these events have the added benefits of improving<br />
teamwork and stimulating better cross-company<br />
communication.<br />
Since Society was first set up, we have guaranteed<br />
every colleague three fully-paid volunteering days<br />
per year. For the past four years we have also been<br />
enthusiastic participants in Give & Gain Day. We<br />
were one of the national sponsors for the event in<br />
2013, and we decided to support it again in <strong>2014</strong>.<br />
Increasingly we are trying to steer our employee<br />
volunteering choices towards skills-based activities<br />
like providing advice on CV writing and delivering<br />
mock interview workshops. Although we will continue<br />
to do physical activities like gardening and painting<br />
upon occasion, we feel that skills-based activities<br />
offer us the opportunity to make a more profound<br />
and measurable impact on people’s lives by utilising<br />
our unique experience as headhunters in a<br />
meaningful way.<br />
We are also trying to give a clearer focus to our other<br />
community ventures, including our summer work<br />
experience scheme. This year we will be linking up<br />
with Business in the Community’s ‘Ready for Work’<br />
programme in order to offer our placement to<br />
someone who has been recently homeless and is<br />
now looking to get back into employment.
Workplace<br />
As previously mentioned, 2013 saw a significant<br />
increase in Society’s headcount. Initiatives under<br />
the general theme of ‘Workforce’ have therefore<br />
been a big focus for us over recent months.<br />
In particular there are three areas in which we feel<br />
we have made progress:<br />
1. We have dramatically increased the time and<br />
resources that we allocate to training and<br />
development, including buying in outside<br />
support and sending colleagues on external<br />
courses. At the same time we have also<br />
devolved responsibility in many areas, and<br />
promoted a number of colleagues into team<br />
management positions. We hope that these<br />
changes will help us get the best out of both our<br />
new and existing colleagues.<br />
2. We have expanded the range of benefits that<br />
we provide to employees to include a full Group<br />
Personal Pension Plan and Death in Service<br />
cover of up to 4x salary. We have also begun<br />
offering Childcare Vouchers to colleagues who<br />
are parents, and Season Ticket Loans to<br />
colleagues who have been with the company<br />
for more than three years.<br />
3. We have done a lot of work on defining the sort<br />
of culture that we want the business to possess.<br />
This has led to the creation of our ‘Steering<br />
Wheel’ – a tool that we hope will allow us to<br />
stay true to our founding values and behaviours<br />
as we continue to grow and diversify.<br />
Having taken these steps, we will next look to<br />
quantify their effect by conducting a thorough Staff<br />
Survey later in <strong>2014</strong>.<br />
Recent highlights:<br />
• We have created a company<br />
‘Steering Wheel’ in order to provide<br />
new colleagues with a clear<br />
statement of the values and<br />
behaviours we all need to abide by.<br />
• We have reviewed our policies on<br />
issues such as equality and<br />
diversity, harassment and bullying,<br />
health and safety, alcohol and drug<br />
misuse, and whistle-blowing.<br />
• We have implemented a<br />
transparent progression structure,<br />
giving colleagues greater clarity<br />
about development routes, training<br />
opportunities, and salary scales.<br />
• We have made efforts to<br />
encourage healthy eating through<br />
making free fresh fruit available to<br />
colleagues in the office.<br />
• We have implemented a flexible<br />
hours policy, giving colleagues<br />
increased control over their<br />
working day.<br />
• We have created an online portal<br />
called ‘Delphi’ to provide the spine<br />
of our ongoing training and<br />
development activities.<br />
• We have chosen an office with<br />
excellent accessibility for<br />
wheelchair users.<br />
• We have created an employee<br />
benefits scheme consisting of<br />
pension contributions and life<br />
assurance for all colleagues, along<br />
with Childcare Vouchers for<br />
colleagues with children, and<br />
season ticket loans for colleagues<br />
with over three years’ service.<br />
• We have marginally improved the<br />
firm’s maternity/paternity leave<br />
policies and introduced the<br />
possibility of sabbatical breaks<br />
after five years’ service.<br />
Future commitments:<br />
• We will continue to take steps to<br />
increase the diversity of our<br />
workforce, with a particular focus<br />
on reaching out to potential<br />
colleagues who might be over-30,<br />
female, and/or of BME extraction.<br />
• We will take steps to encourage<br />
colleagues to invest more in their<br />
pensions.
Recent highlights:<br />
• We have rewritten our standard<br />
Terms and Conditions of Business<br />
in order to make them shorter and<br />
more transparent.<br />
• We have become signatories to the<br />
Voluntary Code of Conduct for<br />
Executive Search Firms.<br />
• We have signed up to the<br />
Department of Business,<br />
Innovation and Skills’ Prompt<br />
Payment Code.<br />
• We have started to seek more<br />
regular feedback from our clients in<br />
the form of Net Promoter Scores<br />
(NPSs) at the end of every<br />
assignment.<br />
• We have begun providing<br />
dedicated training on ethics to all<br />
new staff as part of their first week<br />
induction programme.<br />
Future commitments:<br />
• We will develop an ethical<br />
framework for determining which<br />
businesses we will and won’t work<br />
with.<br />
• We will engage with Business in<br />
the Community to write thought<br />
pieces on the issues such as<br />
employment discrimination,<br />
diversity and equality and<br />
opportunities, and career planning.<br />
• We will systematically review our<br />
choice of landlord, bank,<br />
accountants, pension provider,<br />
credit cards, telephone operators<br />
(both fixed and mobile), stationery<br />
suppliers, and IT support, in order<br />
to ensure that they are (for<br />
example) paying a Living Wage,<br />
and to see whether more<br />
responsible and sustainable<br />
options are available.<br />
• We will strive to find ever more<br />
accurate ways of including a<br />
consideration of ‘values’ as part of<br />
how we assess candidates.<br />
• We will investigate the feasibility of<br />
setting up a ‘Society Foundation’ to<br />
provide routes into employment in<br />
the recruitment industry for young<br />
people from difficult backgrounds.<br />
Marketplace<br />
As an executive search firm, our supply chain is<br />
relatively simple. We have a handful of partners in<br />
the areas of IT, telephony and finance, but there is<br />
precious little complexity to these relationships. As<br />
far as being a catalyst for change within our<br />
marketplace, we are more focused on transforming<br />
the behaviours of our sector and our clients.<br />
One of the most difficult decisions we have had to<br />
take in recent months was to discontinue our<br />
longstanding Society Points scheme. Despite<br />
consistent effort on our part, the uptake from our<br />
private sector clients simply hasn’t been high enough<br />
for us to justify this initiative on an ongoing basis. We<br />
are now therefore exploring alternative ways in which<br />
we can help to nudge our clients towards responsible<br />
business practice.<br />
In the meantime we remain committed to the<br />
following tenets:<br />
1. We will be selective about which clients we work<br />
for and refuse to partner with unethical, reckless<br />
or destructive organisations.<br />
2. We will continue to build excellent long-term<br />
relationships with our clients, earning their<br />
ongoing loyalty through consistently going the<br />
extra mile.<br />
3. We will aim to be a thought leader within our<br />
sector about issues of responsibility, ethics,<br />
equality of opportunity, sustainability, and<br />
integrity.
Environment<br />
Society continues to operate out of serviced<br />
offices. This places significant limitations on our<br />
direct ability to reduce our environmental footprint.<br />
Everything from heating and lighting through to<br />
cleaning services is provided under a licence by<br />
our third party landlord, MWB. When MWB was<br />
acquired by Regus in February of this year, our<br />
ability to influence how the building is run was<br />
reduced even further.<br />
Nevertheless, we are committed to finding creative<br />
ways of improving our environmental credentials.<br />
We have pinpointed four key environmental<br />
impacts<br />
1. Energy use in our office;<br />
2. Transport emissions from colleagues<br />
commuting to the office and travelling to/from<br />
meetings;<br />
3. Paper use, both in our office and by our<br />
clients;<br />
4. Our consumption of other materials, such as<br />
stationery, computing and IT equipment,<br />
furniture, and food and drink.<br />
When looked at through this framework, our<br />
current inability to (for example) select our energy<br />
supplier is arguably less significant than our ability<br />
to take actions that will reduce the amount of heat<br />
and electricity that we waste in our own office.<br />
Recent highlights:<br />
• We have stopped sending hard copy<br />
(printed) longlist or shortlist<br />
paperwork to clients, furnishing them<br />
instead with PDF documents,<br />
complete with bookmarks for each<br />
candidate. These can easily be<br />
viewed on laptops or tablet devices.<br />
• We have begun to supply client<br />
documentation preloaded on Tesco<br />
Hudl devices, thereby minimising the<br />
client’s likelihood of printing our<br />
paperwork off themselves.<br />
• We have committed to printing all our<br />
stationery and corporate literature on<br />
at least 75% recycled paper stock by<br />
ISO 9001 accredited printers.<br />
• We have introduced a system for<br />
monitoring printing and begun to<br />
publish a monthly league table of the<br />
most and least prolific printers in the<br />
office.<br />
• We have acquired a Terminal Server,<br />
thereby allowing colleagues to work<br />
more easily from home rather than<br />
always having to commute into the<br />
office.<br />
• We have introduced a new travel<br />
policy with an emphasis on further<br />
reducing our use of taxis in favour of<br />
public transport.<br />
Future commitments:<br />
• We will explore ways of encouraging<br />
all colleagues to power off their<br />
computers over night.<br />
• We will increasingly seek to formalise<br />
our policies and procedures on<br />
waste, recycling, and energy usage.<br />
• We will only purchase Fairtrade tea,<br />
coffee and fruit for our offices, and<br />
we will lobby our landlords to do the<br />
same.<br />
• We will lobby our landlords to make<br />
improvements in a number of areas,<br />
including the provision and signing of<br />
recycling facilities, and the use of<br />
more environmentally-friendly<br />
cleaning products.<br />
• We will include a consideration for<br />
environmental sustainability in our<br />
review of suppliers.<br />
• We will investigate the feasibility of<br />
implementing an EMS<br />
(Environmental Management<br />
System).
For more information about<br />
our corporate responsibility<br />
goals, please contact:<br />
Society<br />
83 Baker Street<br />
London<br />
W1U 6AG<br />
mail@impact-society.com<br />
+44 (0)207 935 4052