CSR Policy

Impact Creative Recruitment - Environmental & Corporate Social Responsibility Policy 2016

 Impact Creative Recruitment is the leading recruitment agency working in the creative industries. We are a business with social, environmental and ethical responsibilities at its core.

 Headed by company MD/Joint Founder Nick Evans, along with Impact's CSR committee (Fliss Carr, Anna Heatlie-Edwards and Natalie Hallows), we aim to have a positive effect on society and the environment. We encourage every employee to play a part in our CSR commitment, which is intrinsic in building our company culture and ensuring our values are embedded.

 We are committed to the following:

1. Assisting disadvantaged and young people in our local community through our 'Foundation' with a focus on education and skills/career development. We do this through our partnerships with Inspire! and ReachOut
2. Building stronger communities and developing our staff through fundraising and volunteering
3. Equal opportunities and diversity
4. Ensuring our approach is best practice via our active involvement in Business in the Community and the Prince of Wales' Responsible Business Network

 

Foundation 

Our business position within the creative and media industries gives us unique knowledge and expertise of careers within those sectors. Our community programme is focused on using these skills in order to positively impact disadvantaged young people in our local communities.  This way, we can help them reach their potential. 

In the UK, disadvantaged young people are less likely to achieve good results at schools, and many lack the knowledge and aspirations to enable them to be successful.  However, research shows that if companies like ours get involved at any early stage, we can make a huge difference. There is strong evidence that if young people have 4 or more quality encounters with a commercial business, they are 5 times less likely to find themselves in the 'NEET' category of not in employment, education or training. Only 17% of state school students say they regularly meet adults in jobs they perceive as interesting.

 With this in mind, we use our position and skillset to benefit our local community.  We partner with Inspire! and ReachOut, both independent charities based in the Hackney area, who focus on the education, training and development of young and disadvantaged people by forming mutually beneficial partnerships between businesses, schools and individuals.  Our contribution comes from imparting our knowledge and expertise to students organised by Inspire!, covering the Hackney, Westminster and Camden area.  This includes attending schools, providing in-classroom volunteering and one to one guidance on subjects such as: 

• Completing application forms
• Career talks
• CV advice
• Talks and advice from Impact and clients to young people 

Partnering organisation - BITC 

Business in the Community brings companies who are committed to good business practice together to tackle a wide range of issues which are essential to building a fairer society and a more sustainable future.  BITC are assisting us to shape our CSR policy, demonstrating that our commitment to good business will contribute to our employees' well-being and career success.  They also enable Impact to adopt practical ways to work together to take action to help tackle some of the key issues facing society and, as a media recruitment agency, we will be working with BITC to focus on employment, enterprise, education and environment-related issues. 

Caring for Our Staff 

Our commitment to a fairer society starts with our staff and our HR policy is to attract, recruit and retain engaged and talented individuals to help us drive the business forward.  Each employee is highly valued, and we ensure that they work in the best environment, with access to training, development and growth opportunities. 

 We recognise the importance of diversity in the workplace for you and our client businesses, and encourage a diverse candidate base along with non-discriminatory selection processes.  We are a firm believer in equal opportunities and diversity; our employees come from a cross section of society and currently 76% of our employees are female.  

We aim for our CSR work to enhance the development of various skills and behaviours for our employees including communication, confidence, relationship building, team building and creativity. 

Employee Involvement and Fundraising 

Impact has developed a 'Community Programme' to benefit charities and community groups, as well as promoting a sense of achievement and positive team building.  All prospective employees are advised of our ethics and policies at interview stage and we encourage all staff to get involved in our CSR commitments.  As part of their development, employees pledge a minimum of 2 days per year to our programme.  

Charity Commitment 

We are committed to supporting 1 chosen charity per year and holding 1 charity event per quarter, organised in advance every 6 months.  For 2016, we have selected locally-based charity ReachOut.  To help support this charity, we will hold events to raise funds (i.e. social activities, runs, bakes sales, quizzes etc.) for this extraordinary business, as well as take part in organisation-led activities such as one to one and group mentoring of students.  More detail can be found on the Foundation section.  

Environmental awareness 

Impact does not operate in a business sector which causes significant pollution, however we recognise that our business has an impact on the environment. 

Each employee takes responsibility for, and is committed to minimising this impact, by: 

• Optimising the way we use energy - we have lights which automatically switch off using censors, switch off any electrical equipment, are efficient in use of water and reduce use of plastic by having an energy efficient water filtration system
• Encouraging staff to only use products which are reusable and recyclable
• Separating all waste and sending to a specialist company for recycling - paper, food, stationery, IT and general waste
• Using local suppliers where possible
• Encouraging employees to lower their carbon footprint by:
  • Utilising our cycle to work scheme
  • Encouraging employees to walk to work once a month 

Impact Creative Recruitment Ltd is committed to continually bettering itself and parterning with the local community, creating a collaborative and development-led work environment and dedicating time to charity are all high on the agenda.  We believe these commitments improve business as a whole and we will be providing a CR Report annually to capture the impact of our work and drive continuous improvement.  

For further details, please feel free to get in touch with the CSR committee.