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Stephanie Brady, HR Director at Retail inMotion, explains all about our company’s approach to Corporate Social Responsibility.
I know, it’s a catchy title! If this is a new concept for you, let me explain. It is about the responsibility of companies for their impacts on society. A lot of people see CSR as purely what a company does for charity, but in its true sense it’s much bigger than that.
This has been on our minds for as long as there has been a HR Department in RiM (4 years, if anyone is counting :)) Everyone in RiM has a big heart, but we are also a super busy bunch of people. With the growth that we have had, it’s hard to take on any topic that isn’t urgent. But hey, I could spend all day telling you what we haven’t done yet. Why don’t I share what we have done?
We have created a 5 year CSR Strategy because we know that there are immense benefits for being a socially responsible business. Benefits for the employees, the business, the community and the environment.
• Times have really moved on, we all want to work for a company that cares.
• We want to work for something bigger than us, something that has meaning.
• We want to work for a company whose values are aligned with our own.
There are 5 columns to CSR. We have asked a member of our senior team to sponsor a column each so that it isn’t an entirely HR driven initiative.
Community
We picked one charity to support and this year it is Temple Street Children’s hospital. At every one of our company funded social events we have a collection box for our colleagues to contribute to the charity fund. We are getting involved in the Temple Street Bake off in December, so we will be tempting our colleagues with delicious baked goods all for some “dough” towards our charity. Going forwards we hope to organise some much larger fund-raising events and we are looking at introducing a volunteer scheme.
At Christmas, we always support the Shoe Box Appeal. This is a very big deal in my own house, it’s a wonderful way to teach our children about compassion and to appreciate what they have. We create a box for a girl and a boy my own daughters age. She gets very involved with the shopping and packing of the boxes, and loves to watch the videos of kids opening them!
Something we are also super passionate about is encouraging more women into IT. So, this year we will be participating in the Ada Lovelace project, where some of our wonderful ladies will go to schools and inspire the next generation to take an IT subject in college. On International Women’s Day 2018 we would like to invite some of these school girls into RiM to spend the day with us.
Workplace – Health and Wellness
Another area we have big plans for with Health and Wellness initiatives. We will continue on with our Monday Meditation, Social Committee, healthy lunches and our wonderful Employee Assistance Program, but watch this space for more!
Marketplace – relationships with ethical suppliers. Sustainable practices
This is very much part of our 5 year plan and we will produce guidelines for suppliers regarding sustainability and diversity.
Communications – this is how businesses support, manage and communicate their responsible and sustainable business practices within their organisations. We are so lucky in RiM to have the support of a Corporate and inhouse Communications team. This is such a luxury in a relatively small company. We also have Hubble who will get involved in any events in the future.
Environment- company’s impact on the environment.
There has been a big push and internal communication about recycling properly. We support flexible working and occasional home working which reduces our impact on the environment. A commute out of rush hour can be reduced by half, this decreases emissions immensely.
So, the message is: a lot done, more to do! But we are energised and inspired to make CSR a bigger and bigger part of life at RiM.
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