Directors’ report
Corporate social responsibility
We are committed to Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and we have in place a CSR Policy which has been approved by the Board. Paul Simpson is the Board member with responsibility for CSR. We believe that our focus on CSR not only serves the interest of society but also helps to make us more competitive, although clearly this remains a fine balance of cost and benefit. The Board takes regular account of the significance of CSR matters on both the Company’s business and in assessing any risks. CSR is also included as part of our risk management process.
Our CSR Steering Committee actively manages our CSR campaign; and is drawn from our Company Secretariat, Corporate Communications, Safety, Health and Environment (SHE), Procurement, and Employee Relations functions. It reports quarterly to the Board on progress against CSR objectives.
The Committee held five working sessions during the year concentrating on the development of targets and action plans for SHE, Community Relations and Human Resources.
As part of our ongoing CSR commitment, we are continuing to improve the amount of information available on all our CSR activities and in particular on our community relations programmes. We are working closely with Business in the Community, and are focusing on developing our plans and benchmarking ourselves against other similar companies. We believe this will be a worthwhile task, and is our focus for the forthcoming year. We also intend to further develop and improve the CSR pages on our website during the first half of the next financial year.
We actively encourage feedback from our stakeholders by issuing newsletters to local community organisations as well as holding forums on specific issues. The feedback helps us to develop our future plans.
Compliance with CSR policies is monitored internally.
Our employees are encouraged to refer to our CSR, Environmental, Health and Safety, Ethics, Whistleblowers and Community Relations policies on our intranet site.
Environmental
Continued developments and improvements to our environmental management have taken place this year. Since the launch of Greener-me, Greener KCOM, our Group wide environmental programme last April, we have introduced a number of new activities to encourage our employees to take ownership of some of our environmental activities.
Work has been progressed through the formation of a new Environmental Operations Team comprising of key stakeholders across the Group. The team has developed a Group-wide Environmental Programme which has delivered a number of significant improvements.
To support our Greener-me initiative and to demonstrate our environmental commitment, we offered free energy saving lightbulbs and ‘Hippo Brick’ water saving devices to all employees for use in their homes. Over 2,000 light bulbs and 500 ‘hippo bricks’ were distributed as part of this project. Further initiatives are planned for the next financial year.
The provision of environmental training and awareness has continued with the development of a new environmental e-learning module which was launched in late March 2008 and is mandatory for all employees.
Our recycling initiatives have continued and we are now able to recycle more cardboard through the purchase of a compactor at a key stores site. We have also been working closely with WRAP and we now purchase printer and copier paper with a recycled content of 89 per cent. The directories we publish are produced using paper with a recycled content of 60 per cent.
As well as improving recycling, we have looked at ways to reduce our overall paper consumption. We have recently moved to online payslips and electronic remittances for expenses. Insight, our internal company magazine, is now distributed electronically. Wherever possible our printers have now been programmed to print double sided and to power down outside of normal office hours.
Significant investment has been made in new technology. Microsoft OCS (Office Communication Server), which includes desktop video conferencing, is being rolled out across the Group to improve communication internally. We anticipate that this will have a positive impact on the amount of travel undertaken within the Group, with associated reductions in CO2, alongside productivity gains.
We are continuing with the planned roll out of the Fluoresave technology following the successful pilot project which delivered energy savings of 30 per cent against traditional lighting circuits.
Following our success last year in procuring Good Quality Combined Heat and Power (GQCHP) electricity for our half hourly rated sites we have now secured GQCHP for our non-half hourly sites, reducing our average emissions from 662g per KWh to 376g per KWh for those sites included within the scheme.
We have been awarded the Lord Mayor of Hull Environmental Trophy by the Humberside Occupational Health & Safety Group for our work on waste management and recycling.
There were no prosecutions for any environmental offences during the period nor were any environmental-related enforcement notices served on the Company during the year.
Health & safety
Our Health & Safety management has once again received external recognition through the award by the Humberside Occupational Health & Safety Group of the W M Jackson Trophy for the lowest Accident Incident Rate for companies in Humberside with more than 500 employees. We have won this award for the second consecutive year.
In January 2008 we commenced implementation of BS OHSAS 18001 which will ensure we have a fully certificated health and safety management system that will integrate with our existing Quality, Environmental and Security certifications.
In February 2008, a new Health & Safety Policy was released which has a much greater focus on encouraging an effective health and safety culture.
As part of our new Occupational Health Strategy, a Health and Wellbeing calendar of events has been developed. This has included the provision of wellbeing sessions at four sites during January 2008 which were attended by 259 employees. The sessions involved some simple health checks such as blood pressure, cholesterol and diabetes testing. A further 11 sessions are planned for June/July 2008.
Another initiative included a ‘five a day’ healthy eating awareness campaign supported by the provision of complimentary fruit at office locations for employees.
Our comprehensive training programme has continued with a particular focus on training for all Directors within the Group on new legislative developments.
We also launched a new health and safety e-learning module at the end of March 2008 to all employees across the Group which covers key areas such as safe driving, occupational health and wellbeing, workplace hazards and responsibilities and reporting.
There were no health and safety enforcement notices served on the Company during the year nor were there any prosecutions for health and safety offences.
Community relations
At the KCOM Group, we are proud to play an active role in the community.
By donating time, resources and financial assistance to support initiatives and partnerships that matter to our local communities, we are able to make a positive difference.
Each year, through our KCOM Group-wide Charity of the Year initiative, we aim to support a national charity in its work by raising funds that are donated directly to it.
We encourage employees, as groups and individuals, to organise fundraising events throughout the year, while a network of ‘Charity Champions’ at our offices around the UK raise awareness of our chosen charity and co-ordinate activities where necessary.
Our Charity of the Year for 2007-08 was Rays of Sunshine, a charity that grants the wishes of seriously and terminally ill children. Over £36,000 was raised for the charity with money raised through activities such as dress down days, sponsored runs, book sales, auctions and cake bakes.
On a national basis, we are actively involved in a range of other community activities centred around education, sport and the arts. We have, for the second year running, funded two places in the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain and, by providing services in kind, we continue to be corporate members of the Natural History Museum.
Within our East Yorkshire service area, we invite schools, local projects and organisations to apply for our KC Community Grants worth £500, £250 or £150. These grants, which are offered on a quarterly basis, provide financial assistance for worthwhile projects and initiatives that would otherwise struggle to get support.
Our ongoing sponsorship of the KC Stadium and Hull City Football Club not only promote the region in its sporting activities but also allow us to support, through joint activities, courses for local children to understand the benefits of a healthy lifestyle and foster an interest in sport from a grass roots level.
KCOM employees are hugely supportive of our community activities, getting involved by donating their own time and money to support fundraising activities. Equally we understand there are other charitable causes that matter to our employees and we assist them with their own personal fundraising efforts.
Our people
We firmly believe that having progressive ‘people policies’ at the heart of our business has a real and tangible effect on Group performance.
In the 2007-08 financial year we have launched the following initiatives:
- adopted new technology to allow employees to work more flexibly and achieve a better work/life balance
- developed additional leadership modules to be added to our three level leadership programme
- continued to develop our online employee self-service system for all employees including the launch of online payslips
- reviewed our working patterns in line with the Working Time Directive
- added more flexible benefits to our flexible benefits offering including carbon offsetting and health screening
- conducted a people planning project looking at the skills and capabilities the Group will require over the next three years
- launched an e-learning facility to assist employees to gain extra skills at a time and place to suit them.
Procurement
Our procurement process has only recently come under the formal CSR ‘umbrella’. Whilst the concepts of CSR have always been followed, we have not had a formal process to monitor this. Initial research was undertaken in order to understand what other companies were doing in this area, and we have now carried out an audit so we could understand exactly what we were already doing.
Following on from this, consultations have already been held with our top suppliers (covering 80 per cent of our procurement expenditure) and we are satisfied that they all have robust ethical supplier processes already in place. Any potential new suppliers will be questioned about their CSR strategy and assessed using a balanced risk approach, to ensure their standards align with our values.
Our procurement team is committed to developing CSR within their area and will continue to work with Business in the Community to ensure we meet, where-ever practicable, best practice.
Ethics
As a provider of communications connectivity, we are conscious of our responsibility to ensure, where we can exercise control, that content and service providers observe acceptable standards. We insist upon compliance with the Independent Television Commission/Ofcom programme code and the rules of PayphonePlus. Our internet customers are provided with a free filtering service providing protection from internet viruses and offensive or intrusive emails.
We have an Ethics Policy confirming our commitment to a culture of openness, trust and integrity, and to treating staff fairly and with respect. It confirms our commitment to protect employees, partners, suppliers, customers and shareholders from illegal or damaging actions by individuals.
We also have a Whistleblowers Policy which enables individuals to report, in confidence, any suspected inappropriate behaviour by the Company or employees. It includes a facility for such concerns to be raised with completely independent individuals who can ensure that concerns are properly investigated. We also provide employees with details of how to obtain independent external advice from the Public Concern at Work helpline.
There have been no breaches of the Ethics Policy, nor have there been any incidents reported under the Whistleblowers Policy during the year.