Supporting our people and communities
This year, we conducted our first people survey. The purpose of the survey was to capture open, honest, and anonymous feedback from our people.
During the survey period we achieved a 67% completion rate along with a 58% engagement rate. The survey also identified areas for improvement and our Executive team have committed to implementing these during the next financial year.
Our people are our biggest asset. This year we launched our new benefits portal, SCC Balance to supplement our existing flexible benefits. The portal provides our people with easy access to a range of benefits covering three principal areas to support them in maintaining a healthy work-life balance.
People - Benefits designed to improve our work-life balance, job satisfaction and provide financial and healthcare protection for our people and family.
Places - Benefits tailored to the places our people love and visit the most. From the workplace to the city – travel in style and never pay full price.
Stash - The things our people love to have, available with discounts, or through salary sacrifice schemes.
We know the value of bringing people with diverse backgrounds, experiences, personalities, and skills together.
We’re proud of our inclusive culture and have achieved Level 2 certification in the Disability Confident scheme. This year, we also created employee led diversity and inclusion working groups.
The purpose of these is to share suggestions and further engage our people on how we can make SCC an even more diverse and inclusive place to work.
Our groups focus on the following areas, and currently involves over 60 people across our business.
Access
NOW (network of women)
Rainbow Network (LGBTQ+)
REACH (race, ethnicity & cultural heritage)
STEM (science, technology, engineering, and maths)
Wellbeing
Young Professionals
At SCC, we invest in our people by offering a variety of formal and informal training, including industry accredited courses and qualifications. We want our people to succeed and have the necessary skills to fulfil their maximum potential.
Our Learning and Development team focus on delivering programmes for new people joining the company and those who are already with us and want to develop their personal skills and business and systems knowledge.
Apprenticeships
We continue to run a successful apprenticeship scheme. Over the year, we have seen an increase in numbers throughout the business.
Working in partnership with local colleges and training providers, we have launched several programmes including Level 3 ICT, Level 3 Business Administration, Level 4 Cyber Security Technician, Level 4 Business Analyst, Level 4 Data Analyst and Level 2 Recruitment Resource. Together with wrap around internal development plans this allows our apprentices to grow and develop their technical, business, and personal skills.
Our aim is always to retain all our apprentices at the end of their respective programmes, offering optional higher-level qualifications alongside permanent positions wherever possible.
Graduate scheme
We recruit cohorts of sales graduates who work across the business, liaising with prospective clients and vendors and introducing our services to key decision makers. The scheme starts the graduates on the pathway to becoming an experienced account manager and benefits from a Technical Sales qualification, as well as a comprehensive specialist sales training plan.
The graduates support on campaign management and matched to new business specialisms as they emerge. We also offer bespoke graduate schemes across different business areas and work in partnership with local universities to recruit our graduates. Each graduate has a tailored 12-month development plan designed, including both external and internal training courses and qualifications where relevant to the role.
During January 2022, we became a Real Living Wage Employer. We have committed to pay all our people in line with or above the living wage.
SCC is also committed to attracting and retaining the best talent into our business. We embrace pay principles to ensure we treat all our people equally and fairly.
The table opposite displays our Gender Pay Gap (GPG) KPIs captured and reported by our business.
The health, safety and wellbeing of our people, customers and partners is of paramount importance to us.
Our health and safety policy underpins our activities and covers all aspects of our business. We monitor and continually improve our performance in this area through our ISO 45001 accreditation. We are also accredited to Achilles, CHAS Contractors Health and Safety scheme and Safe Contractor approved. Through these schemes, we promote responsible business practices across our supply chain. Our excellent health and safety standards and policies help mitigate risks to our stakeholders.
Performance overview
The table opposite provides an overview of our health and safety performance.
All incidents including RIDDOR are subject to comprehensive accident investigation, conclusion and an appropriate action plan is issued to relevant staff.
The average incident rate for non-reportable accidents is 1.7 per 100,000 workers for our industry according to the HSE
Year
2018
2019
2020
2021
Average No. of employees
1750
1950
1800
Total Number of Man Hours Worked
3150000
3510000
3240000
Total Number of Non-Reportable Injuries
28
38
16
10
Total Number of Reportable Injuries (Over 7 Day Lost Time Accidents)
0
1
Fatalities
Major Incidents / accidents
Accident Frequency Rate Total (x100,000 Hours Worked)
1.60
2.2
1.01
0.62
Reportable Accident Frequency Rate (x1,000,000 Hours Worked)
0.00
0.5
0.6
Dangerous Occurrences
Reportable Illness
HSE Improvement Notes
HSE Prohibitions
Near Misses
2
4
Working alongside our charity partners is a key element of our community engagement. Using our partners knowledge, experience, and expertise ensures we use our support and resources in the most efficient and effective ways.
Molly Ollys
Molly Ollys supports children suffering from life-threatening illnesses and their families in the UK.
Over the last year, SCC has provided two wishes a month to children with life limiting illnesses and their families. Each wish provided means a child with a life-threatening illness receives equipment, an experience or gifts that can help them with their emotional wellbeing during extremely challenging times.
Prince’s Trust
We are proud patrons of the Prince’s Trust and delighted to be working in partnership with them.
Supporting young people across the UK, The Prince’s Trust provides help, support and guidance enabling individuals to achieve their full potential.
As part of our partnership with the charity, we support a range of their initiatives by donations, fund raising and volunteering.
United by 2022
SCC is a proud Birmingham based business and delighted to be involved with United by 2022 and have representation on their Trustee Board.
The Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games provides the opportunity to have a significant impact on the city, it’s young people and communities long after the sporting events and achievements have finished.
United By 2022 is the legacy charity of the Games. It provides a dedicated community fund to support community led projects, events or initiatives helping disadvantaged or socially excluded people.
We continue to support a range of registered charities with our dress down days. Each week, our people can nominate a chosen charity for promotion on our intranet.
The Rigby Foundation Charitable Trust
SCC is an active supporter of The Rigby Foundation Charitable Trust. Founded by our shareholders the Rigby family, it operates on the principle that success in business goes together with putting back into society and communities.
The Foundation is a registered charity operating independently of SCC and invests in causes relating to lifelong learning, health, and education.
Pennies from Heaven
To further support our charity partners, we launched our Pennies from Heaven scheme.
Pennies from Heaven are a social enterprise committed to helping UK charities. Through the scheme, people can donate the pennies from their monthly salary making it accessible to all our people and providing vital support to our nominated charities Molly Olly’s and United by 2022.
Founded in Birmingham, SCC is proud to support the city and its residents. In July 2021, we founded the SCC Academy whose purpose is to introduce individuals over 18 years old to the tools used in the increasingly connected world.
The academy provides a range of free, in-person interactive courses taught by qualified teachers. These courses range from Essential Digital Skills to higher level instruction needed to access today’s ever developing technology sector. Through these courses, learners are able build confidence and equip themselves with the digital skills required to access both essential every day local services and progression routes to support their journey into further training or employment.
In addition to technical training, the academy also promotes key soft skills such as teamwork, leadership and problem-solving. They also give support and guidance so people can create their own CVs and cover letters to further assist them in achieving their personal development and career aspirations.
Our people have continued donating their time to a range of activities supporting their local communities. To further facilitate this, we have increased our annual volunteering leave to two days per year so our people can volunteer on an individual basis or as part of an organised event.
Shoe Aid
In September, we donated over 140 pairs of shoes across our UK offices to Shoe Aid, a charity working to fight footwear poverty and shoe waste in landfill.
Shoe Aid does amazing work and when people come together across a business the size and scale of SCC, together we can make a significant impact. We will keep supporting Shoe Aid as one of many charity partners, as we deliver on our promise to give back to people and our communities.
Operation Christmas Child
Each year, the Samaritan’s Purse charity runs the ‘Operation Christmas Child’ campaign where they send boxes filled with toys, hygiene products and school stationery supplies to children around the world who may not otherwise receive anything for Christmas.
In November, our volunteers supported the event by raising £1,100 for the charity and volunteered by checking boxes to ensure they were safe for the children and Customs approved.
Packing boxes filled with toys and stationery knowing they will put a smile on children’s faces on Christmas day who would otherwise go without was truly humbling. The work this charity does to bring the community together to help so many children around the world is incredible, and we look forward to working with them in future.
