Corporate social responsibility

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 95%, 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.

Our people

Helphire recognises the vital contribution of its people to the sustainability of its success and aims to be an employer of choice for our people.

Helphire is fully committed to the principle and practice of equal opportunities and does not tolerate discrimination, bullying or harassment of any form, and has established policies which comply fully with the relevant UK and EU legislation.

Equally, the health and safety of our employees and customers is of paramount importance. Internally we have an established Health and Safety Policy across the business and a committee which is chaired by the Group HR Director.

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 2008/09, business units across the Group continued to support a number of charitable causes, raising in excess of £24,000 from monthly, ‘dress-down’ Friday charity collections and one-off initiatives led by our people.

Managing our supply chain responsibly

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 2008/09, business units across the Group continued to support a number of charitable causes, raising in excess of £24,000 from monthly, ‘dress-down’ Friday charity collections and one-off initiatives led by our people.

 

Key performance indicators

The following KPI's have been developed to support the five main areas of our CSR strategy outlined above:

		2009	2008
	Our business partners and customers
	Customer Satisfaction Index Score	95%	97%
	Average length of business partner relationships (years)*	6	5
	Our people
	Percentage of people engaging in Employee Survey	48%	59%
	Percentage of survey respondents who believe Helphire contributes
	to the local community to an appropriate level	52%	44.3%
	Percentage of survey respondents who believe that people are treated fairly
	and equally regardless of their age, race, gender etc.	***n/a	82.3%
	Incident rate for all reportable accidents (per ’000 employees**)	0.68	2.25
	The environment
	Group Office energy usage (tonnes CO2 per head**)	0.83	0.83
	Fleet carbon footprint
	– Customer fleet (tonnes CO2 per car hire day)	0.014	0.015
	Office paper
	– Quantity purchased (reams per head**)	18	15.30
	– Sourced from sustainable sources (%)	100	New
	Recycling
	– % of total waste recycled ****	41	New
	Our suppliers
	Strategic suppliers audited against Group standards (%)	In progress	New
	Our communities
	Total community and charitable investment (£’000)	24	14
*	Based on Helphire’s ten leading business partners, in terms of case volumes.
**      Headcount based on average number of employees for the year (2,922).
***    Due to a change in Survey for 2008/09 this question was not asked.
****	Sites for which data is unavailable are not included.

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 stringentsocial, ethical and environmental criteria, and are positioned to capitalise on the benefits of responsible business practice.