Making a Difference
In our local communities, our focus is on a combination of volunteering and funding. In the past 24 months we have provided over £550,000 in support of local projects. Our activity makes a difference for the organisations we support, our people and Vertex as a whole.
Vertex India wins Community Initiative of the Year
Recognised as one of the top ranked performers in the Hewitt best employer survey our people in India put on a range of events to ensure mutual respect and cross culture working. Initiatives include Family Days, Talkback, Mitr (Friend), Team Time and Chill Pool. Our business has forged strong relations with Blessings – a national charity helping the most poverty stricken individuals. Vertex India also supports Cry which campaigns for children's rights.
Vertex India were awarded our internal Community Initiative of the Year Award 2005 for their significant contribution to community focused initiatives
The Local Employment Assistance Programme, Westminster
LEAP is a private, public and voluntary partnership set up to create new jobs, specifically for people living in Westminster who are seeking employment opportunities.
LEAP is aimed at job seekers looking to develop a career in office work and administration. It will be a great boost to the area, which despite common perceptions of wealth suffers from a range of social and economic problems.
Between September 2005 and March 2006, LEAP clients will attend a two-month work placement with either Vertex or one of our partners, Accord and Kelly Services. Kelly Services will seek to provide opportunities at the end of the placement. The job opportunities will be in a customer-service orientated role.
Vertex will provide continual training support to the work programme and will provide off and onsite work placements and practical experience across various locations in Westminster. After the training period, each client will then be given the opportunity to gain permanent full-time employment, and benefit from continual work based training such as customer service skills, including the option to enter onto an NVQ accredited course.
This project is part of a number of United Futures initiatives with our voluntary sector partner, The Groundwork Trust. For more information, visit www.groundwork.org.uk
National Training Awards, Modern Apprenticeships – Nairn, Scotland
Providing a range of Parking-related services to local authority clients, our people in Nairn developed vocational qualifications to support apprenticeships and personal development. Our people wanted to improve further their administration skills and parking appeals and representation knowledge. Working with Training Matters, we developed, delivered and supported the training which is equivalent to NVQ Level 3. Following implementation our clients saw a big increase in revenue generated and told us we had ‘exceeded their expectations’. Our work is this area has created the first nationally recognised parking qualification
Charitable Fund Raising – Kirkby and Speke
During the past 12 months our people helped raise £23,550 towards good causes. Through the co-ordinating activity of our local Charity Committees our people have also supported inward investment bids with the local authority, worked with the local chamber of commerce to facilitate sharing ICT good practice amongst small-medium enterprises and provided work experience placements for local young people.
Support for physically handicapped people – Forres, Scotland
Working with the local employment service, our people working on behalf of our client Tesco, provided employment opportunities for individuals experiencing social exclusion due to their disability. The employment service applauded the life changing opportunities provided.
Vertex Financial Services - case study
Community investment has been the most visible side of the Financial Services Division’s Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) programme. Investment has taken the form of staff time and skills, charitable donations and donations in kind. The programme was established in March 2000, by Marlborough Stirling Group, prior to it’s acquisition by Vertex. Following a recent re-branding exercise, the programme has been renamed 'Involve' (Inspired Volunteers of Vertex).
The programme's key objective is to support educational, voluntary and charity organisations local to our areas of operation, which brings a positive return to the company, it’s staff and our communities. The programme is available across our UK operation and offers innovative opportunities for staff training and development.
In 2001 after only two years of running the programme, the company won the Citizen and Echo Business Award for Contribution to the Community.
In September 2004, we became a new addition to the FTSE4Good Index.
During 2004 around 400 people participated in community projects and there is continuing enthusiasm for the programme.
Staff are given a time allowance for their volunteering (up to one day per quarter), which is the company’s way of providing tangible support. Our staff value the opportunity to use their skills in a supportive and creative way, enjoying and gaining motivation from making a difference. There is a diverse range of volunteering projects available, which provide staff with opportunities that are both relevant to the business and enable them to develop and grow through their experiences outside their normal working environment.
We have developed partnerships with schools local to each of our UK offices where we provide support with literacy/numeracy lessons and at senior school level with interview skill practice and understanding around enterprise and business.
In Cheltenham we recently worked with students from St. Gregory’s Junior School to support their learning in relation to enterprise and business by hosting a Communications Day. Students spent time touring our offices and interviewed employees to help gain an insight into how our business operates and what motivates our people in their day to day activities. They were also able to participate in a telephone conference between our offices, experiencing first hand, how responsible businesses use technology to optimise communication.
"The children were so excited and enjoyed themselves so much…the children haven’t stopped talking about their visit!…we spent the whole afternoon working out how they were going to present the information that they had gathered" [St. Gregory’s School].
"For my part it was great fun and I was really impressed by the questions asked." (Jacqui, volunteer).
We believe that good corporate citizenship should be measured not only by our inputs, but also on outcomes and the difference that we can make to the communities around us. Employee volunteering is one of the most potent ways in which we illustrate our CSR commitment and successfully embedding CSR in this way has led to staff representing our organisation in their communities, where it really makes a difference.