We are committed to developing a workforce that represents the various communities and customers we serve. Our personnel span multiple nationalities and languages and we embrace many cultures across our entire business. Our BPO division is proud to have implemented this diverse approach and to have hired employees from a variety of different groups. The division makes a point of facilitating female employment and promotion. Our Serbian office already has a high level of female workforce participants. From 11 employees in technical roles, 5 are females. Our UK office adheres to regulated requirements which include an action plan to address any gaps in recruitment such as the male female gender balance. We are seeing more female graduates attend interviews and join us.
In September 2020, the Learning and Development (L&D) function was transformed via the launch of an in-house e-learning platform ‘Lynx’. The Lynx platform allows the L&D team to focus on elements where interaction is imperative, such as on the job skills improvement. Support and compliance documents, such as Human Resources, Corporate Services and Security policies are available on the system, allowing easy access to the most current versions. At our UK BPO division, all of the management team has come through the ranks, starting in more junior roles and working their way up to more senior ones. In total, 82.3% of our leaders have been promoted from within the organisation. As business has grown significantly, we encourage employees to have an entrepreneurial outlook and move across business units.
Across EMEA where an employee requires redeployment or alternative work amendments because of a disability or illness, it is immediately enacted by HR. As an equal opportunity employer, when we are looking to fill vacancies, we actively work with disability organisations. Both in France and the Netherlands, all the workforce in one of our facilities is composed of people with disabilities. In other countries, we work with local organisations to help with employment of people with disabilities.
Via the EMEA Diversity Policy, we added in excess of 1,000 vendors that have been included in the due Diligence Matrix.
We have an active policy to support the armed forces in the UK, where there are also 3 champions in the organisation charged with looking after the mental health of our team.
In the UK, we work with the company Engie to manage energy and water supplies with the goal to decrease consumption and have asked them to transition to a more monitoring role for carbon footprint reporting. Our French offices are attached to a large warehouse. Over the summer, the temperature in the office can be unbearable. The Operations team found a sustainable AC solution which only requires water, air and very little electricity. This installation did not require any wiring nor drilling as it only uses natural elements available. In the UK an Esos Audit and Compliance had a positive impact:
- Reset timers to reduce Bank Holiday electricity consumption
- Installed gas smart metres, occupancy sensors for the air conditioning and lights, LED lights
- Hung transparent PVC curtains inside the roller shutter doors
- Agreed a directly metered electricity supply and negotiated a tariff directly with the supplier
- Transferred 90% of the computing activities off the servers and into the cloud
In the UK in 2021, we recycled 7.8 tonnes of electronic waste (TV Monitors, Mixed batteries and both Hazardous and Non Hazardous Category 3). We also encourage staff to use alternative methods of transport but where a car needs to be used the employee has to demonstrate a reduction in Co2 and select a hybrid or electric car as per government requirements.