While the Directors ensure our objectives are met at executive level, the Group’s Professional Standards Department offers everyone the chance to put forward new ideas on how our policies and practices can be improved.

HEALTH AND SAFETY

Every effort is made to ensure that the requirements of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 and the European Community Directives on Health and Safety are complied with at all times.
The Chief Executive Officer has overall responsibility for the implementation of our Health and Safety policy, with day-to-day matters delegated to the senior manager at each location.
There is an internal audit system across the Group, which calls on every major UK location to demonstrate its legal compliance. The results of this year’s audit are:

In addition to measuring performance on the day, an action plan is devised which identifies weakness and other areas for improvement at each site. While the UK Personnel division’s sites are not currently included in the audit, a system is being devised to provide a set of key performance indicators which will be used to measure compliance.
Notwithstanding our committed approach to health and safety we very much regret that there have been some fatalities during the year. Three members of the public died in road accidents involving our commercial vehicles and one employee died as a result of a recognised industrial disease, although that disease may have originated from his previous employment.
The implementation of modern working practices means that Hays engages a significant number of independent contractors to perform services on behalf of Group businesses. As a responsible Company, our health and safety policies and practices are being extended to include these independent contractors.
During the past year, Hays Montrose has supported the ‘Working Well Together’ scheme, an industry-wide construction health and safety campaign developed by the Health and Safety Commission’s Construction Industry Advisory Committee, which included the promotion of health and safety issues on construction sites.

RECYCLING WASTE PAPER

In the summer of 2002, we entered into an agreement for the recycling of all the waste paper and cardboard generated by Hays Montrose, Hays Education Personnel, Hays Logistics Personnel and at our main administration centre.
The selected locations all have recycling boxes on the premises. During the year they collected a total of 121 tonnes of waste paper and cardboard, the equivalent of 2,028 trees saved.
We aim to extend this programme to the rest of our offices in the UK.

REDUCING EMISSIONS, SAVING ENERGY

Like many Companies, we provide our staff with company cars so that they can visit clients more easily. All these cars are regularly serviced to ensure we keep our vehicle emissions to the minimum.
Staff at all our offices are encouraged to ensure that all heating systems and other electrical equipment are turned off outside working hours.
At the same time, our purchasing departments are continuously investigating and monitoring energy savings and efficiencies in all the Group’s premises.

EMPLOYMENT RIGHTS

We are committed to achieving equal opportunities throughout the Group.
We comply with the Race Relations, Sex Discrimination, Disability Discrimination and Rehabilitation of Offenders Acts, believing that this commitment gives every existing and potential employee, candidate or client the opportunity to benefit from fair employment policies without regard to their sex, race, religion, age, disability or marital status.
This policy applies to every aspect of our work as both a recruitment consultancy and a direct employer. Its ultimate aim is to eliminate both direct and indirect discrimination in all that we do.

CHARITABLE SUPPORT

Last year we announced a new partnership with Cancer Research UK, Europe’s leader in the development of anti-cancer drugs, which supports and carries out medical research throughout the UK and Ireland.
To date, the funds raised through this partnership amount to £30,587.
Hays Montrose and Office Green have launched a fund-raising partnership to raise money for The Lighthouse Club, the construction industry charity which helps both the victims of construction accidents and their families.
With over £60 million worth of printer cartridges being thrown away in the UK each year, Office Green will pay The Lighthouse Club up to £7 for toner cartridges and up to £3.50 for inkjet cartridges collected and recycled through this initiative.
‘Answer The Call’ is another initiative designed to help fund The Lighthouse Club by collecting and recycling functional, yet idle, mobile phones.
For every recyclable phone donated, £5 will be given to The Lighthouse Club. With an estimated 20 million redundant phones lying in drawers around the UK, we need to access only a fraction of them to achieve our target of £25,000.