Corporate Responsibility
Throughout our 25-year history, giving something back to the world we live and work in has always been important. Over the past year, however, we have reviewed our strategy, focusing on our strengths, clarifying our core responsibilities and discussing how we can best contribute economically, environmentally and socially.
The result is a more business-focused and strategic Corporate Responsibility Programme. Our efforts are now concentrated on four core groups (young people, job seekers, community organisations and our employees) in three areas (community, environment and the workplace.)
Strategy
Recognising and developing talent is at the heart of everything we do. Corporate responsibility is no exception. By concentrating on what we do best, we can contribute more.
Day in, day out, we match skilled individuals to unique business needs. By doing so, we help society by fostering economic sustainability and growth.
Our basic environmental and social responsibilities include helping to tackle climate change and treating all our stakeholders – candidates, clients, employees, shareholders, suppliers – with due respect and courtesy. The more we concentrate on hiring and training the right people the better we will be able to meet these responsibilities.
Last, but not least, by encouraging our people to volunteer their skills and enthusiasm, we believe we can help more than just the communities in which we live and work. We also help our employees develop their own talents by working with people from different backgrounds in new and unfamiliar circumstances.
Principles
We have evolved our Corporate Responsibility Strategy around the following six guiding principles:
- Focus on core skills and expertise
Concentrate on projects that utilise the best of SThree. - Engage employees
Focus on initiatives that provide opportunities for active engagement, experiential learning and cross-team working. - Think global, act local
Use a global perspective to inform and guide local activities. - Partner
Work closely with community organisations to respond to real needs; engage with clients and suppliers to leverage impact. - Support the SThree values
Concentrate on projects that reinforce our values: Respect, Energy, Rapport and Reward - Build the brand
Create and celebrate a Corporate Responsibility Programme that represents us, and of which employees and other stakeholders can be proud
Community
Building on our previous work with young people who are not in education, employment or training, we made 'Employability and Raising Aspiration' a central focus for our community engagement in 2011.
Activities span the following areas:
Volunteering
We continued to work closely with Time & Talents for Westminster, and commenced new relationships with City Action and East London Business Alliance (ELBA) to support our volunteering goals in London.
Corporate giving and fundraising
For the past three years, we have supported SOS Children’s Villages, an orphan and abandoned children’s charity that works in over 120 countries. Our contribution in 2011 brought the three-year total to over £200,000. This has funded projects in Africa, China, Haiti, India and Syria.
A particular 2012 highlight saw one of our employees run five marathons within the year to raise money for SOS Children’s Villages and become their Supporter of the Month.
*Image courtesy of SOS Children's Villages.
Environment
In addition to our basic responsibility of minimising our environmental impact, we are increasingly aware of the role that business must play in tackling climate change and are committed to our part in creating a carbon neutral future.
This year we commissioned a third party to measure our UK carbon footprint. Their analysis showed that this was 2,873 tonnes of
CO2e* between December 2009 and the end of November 2010, including office utilities, paper use and company related car travel. The figure was slightly down over a three year period.
However, to help us further improve our environmental performance, we must first improve monitoring and in 2012, we will be gathering data on air and train travel.
* In the course of our commercial activities, we release not only CO2 but a number of other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. The CO2 equivalent figure (CO2e) shows the total climate change impact of all the greenhouse gases caused by a certain item or activity rolled into one and expressed in terms of the amount of carbon dioxide that would have the same impact.
Workplace
Managing talent is naturally an absolute priority for us – it is the essence of what we do. We are therefore committed to the following principles and continually strive to put them in place.
Fair recruitment - Applicants to our business are always assessed fairly and treated with respect at every stage of the hiring process.
Training & Development - We offer appropriate training to all our people in order to help them complete their daily work to the best of their abilities.
Diversity & Equality - We ensure that all areas of our business embrace diversity, and offer fairness and equality of opportunity in every respect. In 2011, we launched 'Identity', an initiative to increase the number of women in leadership in roles across the Group.
Talent - We want to harness the full potential of all our people and we actively encourage and support those who demonstrate the right commitment and who have the talent to progress.
Reward – We recognise service, effort and achievement and reward personal success.
Engagement & Communications - Talking to our people and listening to what they have got to say is a priority for us. We actively seek opportunities to respond to their feedback.
InvestmentCase
As a leading player in the field of specialist recruitment, SThree offers investors the opportunity to buy into a large-scale business with robust credentials.
Management andBoard
Our Board Directors have many years’ experience in a wide variety of different sectors, both in the UK and internationally.