Corporate Social Responsibility
The Directors and senior management team of Helphire Group plc
fully recognise that the future success of the Group is dependent
on its ability to balance the diverse interests of its stakeholder
groups, including its employees, business partners, clients,
shareholders, the wider community and the environment in which it
operates.
Given the scale and geographic scope of the business, Helphire
has undertaken a review of current performance in the area of
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), with a view to supporting
the achievement of our business goals.
Helphire's CSR strategy aims to focus on the following key
areas:
- The delivery of a consistent quality of service to our business
partners and individual customers;
- The measurement and minimisation of the environmental impact of
the Group's business units;
- The establishment of Helphire as an employer of choice;
- Engagement with and contribution to the wider communities in
which we operate; and
- Responsibly managing our supply chain.
As such we have undertaken a number of initiatives to support
and achieve these aims:
Business partners and customers
During the last year, over 3,000 customers provided us with
valuable feedback about our call-handling and replacement vehicle
services. The Group is pleased to maintain a customer satisfaction
rate of 91%, as reported by customers who said that they were
satisfied or very satisfied with their experience of our
services.
We have
restructured our relationship management teams to ensure that we
have a consistent approach across the Group and that our services
meet the needs of our partners and their customers. Our
relationships are supported with service level agreements and
management information that transparently tracks our performance
against these criteria.
Helphire and the environment
We recognise that our business has an unavoidable impact on the
environment and that we need to minimise these effects wherever and
whenever practicable. Over the last 12 months we have been
constantly evolving the size and composition of our fleet to match
the requirements of the business, so have been unable to gain an
accurate measure of our fleet based emissions, but we remain
committed to minimising these.
Helphire in the community
The Group believes it can and should make a positive
contribution to the local communities in which it operates, and has
over the last financial year focused on maintaining its support for
local communities whilst minimising the associated financial impact
on the Group.
In 2009/10, business
units across the Group continued to support a number of charitable
causes, raising in excess of £6,000 from monthly,
‘dress-down’ Friday charity collections and one-off
initiatives led by our people.
Managing our supply chain responsibly
Helphire manages a diverse range of suppliers
and contractors, operating a selection
policy that always considers quality,
delivery and warranty elements of
proposals, as well as cost. We maintain, and
regularly review, service level
agreements with our strategic suppliers,
ensuring the highest possible service standards
for our internal and external customers. Our
supplier policy is currently under
review, with a process being implemented
to audit our strategic suppliers against wider
ethical and environmental
considerations. We have policies and
processes in place to ensure that our
people reject any attempt at improper business
practice and avoid using their position for
personal gain.
Key performance indicators
The Group has developed a set of CSR key performance indicators
to support the five main areas of our CSR strategy outlined above.
These can be found in the Group's Annual Report & Accounts.
External benchmarking
Helphire is proud to continue to be a member company of the
FTSE4Good Index. FTSE Group confirms that Helphire has been
independently assessed according to the FTSE4Good criteria, and has
satisfied the requirements to become a constituent of the FTSE4Good
Index Series. Companies in the FTSE4Good Index Series have met
stringent social, ethical and environmental criteria, and are
positioned to capitalise on the benefits of responsible business
practice.
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