Corporate Responsibility: Workplace

Overview

• We have 35 colleagues working in our offices in Liverpool and London and from home
• Our Life at Work programme consults colleagues on improvements so that they get the most out of life at work
• We have 93% employee retention
• Overall employee satisfaction is measured every year and is now at 85% (up 9% on 2006/7)

Improving the workplace

• Our new Liverpool office was designed with input from our colleagues to provide the workplace they wanted
• Our London office is moving to new premises to provide consistent high quality work spaces across the company
• Our new Liverpool office complies with the latest standards for disabled access and environmental impact
• All employees have remote access to our networks to enable flexible working (access to broadband at home is company funded)

Acting on diversity

• We were one of the pilot signatories to the Diversity Dividend
• We have a strong track record on age, male/female employment and flexible working
• 60% of our employees are female; 25% have young children; four work predominantly from home; we recruited a youth team for youth campaigns

Measuring ourselves against standards

• We have held ISO 9001 for our internal processes since 1994
• We won a Big Tick and were shortlisted as small company of the year in 2005
• We were one of the first 10 companies to sign up to GoodCorporation

Investing in learning and personal development

• All colleagues have completed 360 degree appraisals
• We have a massive commitment to training and development; delivered through our CC Academy
• Every employee is encouraged to have a personal development plan (85% of employees take up this opportunity)
• We invested over £80k in training in 2007 (equivalent to £2,300 per person)
• We are an Investors in People company and have been since 2005

Increasing benefits

• All colleagues (excluding directors) benefit from profit share with 20% of disposable profit returned to colleagues
• We provide a healthy lunch free to colleagues
• We have introduced an additional one week’s holiday for employees every fifth anniversary year with the business

Improving communications

• We have just launched a new company intranet
• We have weekly business updates
• We have bi-monthly company meeting
• Our brand was created by colleagues; the spark logo reflects our role as a catalyst for change with customers; colleagues create their individual spark logos for their own business cards