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Supporting our people and communities

This year has been a transformative year for our People function at SCC.

As we strive to become the most people-centric IT systems integrator in the UK, we continue to significantly invest in new tools and programmes to support our colleagues and enable people to thrive.

Our people are the unsung, everyday heroes who propel the services we offer and are the backbone of our business. We remain committed to our employees development and career success during their lifetime with SCC.

The SCC People Team embodies the workforce it supports; a diverse, talented and devoted group of individuals, all of whom work each day to make a positive difference. They promote a culture true to SCC’s core values of family, passion, agility, responsibility, and customer first; we think and move with agility, with family principles and passion at our core, always holding ourselves responsible and putting the customer above all. This is the ethos we breath into everything we do.

The pillars of our people strategy, the Employer Value Proposition (EVP) and People Plan, were launched in 2023. Our EVP – renamed People Promise – outlines the business’s commitment to ensuring meaningful work and contribution for all individuals, growth and development, and sustaining a collaborative culture. The People Plan outlines what we will do to keep that promise, including work on talent acquisition and attraction, onboarding and induction, modernisation of talent development, performance management, colleague engagement & retention, and much more.

Employee Engagement

Continuing the innovation theme, 2023 saw the launch of a brand-new colleague survey. Following feedback from our people, we launched a new survey with third party Inpulse, that gave more ownership of data to managers and leaders of people, provided data in a format that was easier to digest and understand, and allowed us to ask questions more bespok

84% of our workforce completed the survey (+7% yoy), and our engagement score was 74%. When asked if people believed SCC was a great place to work, 63% of colleagues agreed, a 10% increase on the previous year. For the first time as part of this survey, we also asked our colleagues to answer questions around D&I, which will allow us to measure our progress in this area more effectively in the future too.

Effectively communicating with our workforce is an essential part of colleague engagement, which is why we introduced regular All Hands meetings for the whole business. The first meeting, held in our National Distribution Centre (NDC) and broadcast to the UK business, was attended by 200 people in person and watched by more than 1,000 people live. These valuable meetings, which take place once a quarter in a different SCC location each time, are hosted by CEO UK Dennis Badman and invite open questions from the audience. Dennis provides a real-time view of the business and spends time answering people’s questions.

Colleagues are invited to ask an anonymous question ahead of time or ask live on the day.

Diversity and Inclusion

SCC continues its promotion and investment in its diversity and inclusion (D&I) groups, relaunching as SCC Belong this year. The networks have grown and developed over the past 12 months which has led to many positive outcomes. Thanks to our REACH group, we signed the Race at Work Charter, a public commitment to improving the experiences of Black and minority ethnic employees in the workplace. We also provided more colleagues with menopause support through our updated policy and menopause event, thanks to work by our Wellbeing Network.

Suitable procedures are in operation to support the Group’s policy that disabled persons (whether registered or not) shall be considered for employment and subsequent training, career development and promotion on the basis of their aptitude and abilities, including existing employees who become disabled.

Applications for employment by disabled persons are always fully considered, bearing in mind the abilities of the applicant concerned. In the event of members of staff becoming disabled every effort is made to ensure that their employment with the Group continues and that appropriate training is arranged. It is the policy of the Group and the Company that the training, career development and promotion of disabled persons should, as far as possible, be identical to that of other employees.

Diversity & Inclusion Networks

ACCESS: We focus on ability, not disability. We’re members of Neurodiversity in Business and part of the Disability Confident Scheme where we have been recognised with the Disability Confident Level 2 certification.

Network of Women (NOW): We give women at SCC, and our allies, a voice to share ideas, opportunities, and experiences. We explore ways we can encourage more women to join the SCC family and support each other to reach our full potential.

Rainbow Network: Whether you’re part of the LGBTQ+ community or an ally wanting to support your colleagues, our Rainbow network is here for you. Our network has implemented a range of initiatives, leading to winning a prestigious Founder’s Award.

Race, Ethnicity, and Cultural Heritage (REACH): Our network celebrates the diversity of our colleagues along with raising awareness and implementing positive changes into our business. Our network won a Founder’s Award for demonstrating our values.

Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM): We want to help dispel any myths around this area, promote it as a fun and exciting sector to work in and use our knowledge and experience to help engage our future talent.

Wellbeing Network: To support the ongoing mental and physical health of our employees, we have a team of Mental Health Champions. We’ve also implemented Balance and an Employee Assistance Programme (EAP). Young Professionals: Our aim is to make SCC a better place to work for existing, and future young professionals. We want to attract, retain, develop, and support our young professionals.

Talent Development

We want our people to continue growing their knowledge, sharpening their skills, and enriching their talents. To assist people in carving out the careers they crave, we’ve launched initiatives and tools this year through our Talent Team. STAR Sustain, Thrive, Attract, Retain STAR is our brand-new talent development platform powered by Skillsoft. Colleagues have access to 18,000 pieces of learning content and can choose different mediums of learning (podcast, video, quiz etc.) to suit their learning styles. STAR provides AIdriven recommendations to offer relevant courses based on a person’s role & interests, live courses and seminars and bite-sized pieces of content to easily consume during work.

PEAK Performance Evaluation Assessment

Kit Launching at the very end of the fiscal year is PEAK, designed to revolutionise the performance development review process. With a new platform and process, all colleagues can expect regular 1-2-1 reviews with their managers, clear objectives to work towards and an improved one-to-one d iscussion experience. PEAK will form a huge part of next year’s people investment.

ACE Accelerating Career Excellence (through apprenticeships)

Everyone at SCC is welcome to apply for an apprenticeship at any stage in their career. We use our apprenticeship levy fund to not only support new recruits to the business but also upskill our current workforce. The Talent Team meets with individuals to discuss suitable programmes that are relevant to a person’s role and development and offer everything from an entry level (Level 2) to a master’s degree equivalent (Level 7). We’ve had more than 50 people start an apprenticeship in the past year.

Gender pay gap reporting

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.

GPG KPIs	April 2018	April 2019	April 2020	April 2021	April 2023
Mean GPG %	16.6	20.7	20.4	7.9	12.1
Median GPG %	16.2	7.4	20.4	8.5	1
Mean Bonus Gap %	35.2	30.7	35.6	35.2	27.5
Median GPG %	19.0	8.3	3.4	30.5	-9.2
Proportion receiving bonus (%) - male	30.5	31.6	39.0	33.0	42.5
Proportion receiving bonus (%) - female	49.0	39.5	47.5	49.2	48.1

Health and safety

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	2019	2020	2021	2022	2023
Average No. of employees	1950	1750	1800	1900	1872
Total Number of Man Hours Worked	3510000	3510000	3240000	3420000	3369600
Total Number of Non-Reportable Injuries	38	16	10	16	17
Total Number of Reportable Injuries (Over 7 Day Lost Time Accidents)	1	1	0	1	1
Fatalities	0	0	0	0	0
Major Incidents / accidents	0	0	0	0	0
Accident Frequency Rate Total (x100,000 Hours Worked)	1.01	0.51	0.31	0.46	0.50
Reportable Accident Frequency Rate (x1,000,000 Hours Worked)	0.28	0.32	0.00	0.29	0.29
Dangerous Occurrences	0	0	0	0	0
Reportable Illness	0	0	0	0	0
HSE Improvement Notes	0	0	0	0	0
HSE Prohibitions	0	0	0	0	0
Near Misses	4	1	3	2	5

Through our focused approach of giving back, supporting digital inclusion, tackling barriers to unemployment, and building skills we provide opportunities for our communities to thrive.

Charity partners

Working with our charity partners we continue to provide further support to our communities. In partnership with the Rigby Foundation, we support The Prince’s Trust through our colleagues volunteering and facilitating CV workshops as part of the charity’s Team programme.

Maintaining our partnership with Molly Olly’s, we continue to fund two wishes a month to children with life-limiting illnesses and their families. Through this and our additional donations and fund raising during the year means children with a life-threatening illness receives equipment, an experience, or gifts that can help them with their emotional wellbeing during extremely challenging times.

This year, we also formalised our partnership with CASBA, a Birmingham based charity that provides advocacy to people with learning disabilities. CASBA work to ensure that citizens can speak up for themselves, express their views, make choices, secure their rights and entitlements, and be valued and recognised. Our partnership will involve fundraising, volunteering, training, and awarenessraising, as we work collaboratively to support CASBA’s vital work and help make SCC an even more inclusive and accessible employer in the West Midlands and beyond.

Supporting our communities

Incorporated into our sustainability approach, we have aligned our delivery to the 4 P’s methodology of Plant, People, Prosperity and Principles. Each area is managed by an internal subject matter expert which collectively forms our Sustainability committee. Through this committee, we engage with communities, via our charity partners and employee volunteering activities, whilst capturing community focused key performance indicators such as volunteering hours completed and both financial and gifts in kind donations made.

During FY24, 157 days were donated to support people in our local communities. These included participating in Birmingham Children’s Hospital Dragon Boat race and our Livingston volunteering event.

Birmingham Children’s Hospital Dragon Boat race

SCC, along with 52 other boats, took part in Birmingham Children’s Hospital charity boat race in June 2023. Through the fantastic fundraising efforts of our colleagues and generous donations from vendor partners, we raised over £8,000 for the charity.

The aim of the event was to help the charity raise funds so they could acquire an Intraoperative Magnetic Resonance Imaging Machine (iMRI). This would enable an MRI scanner to be moved directly to a patient on an operating table, or a patient to the scanner, so surgeons can obtain ‘live’ and up-to-date information about the position of a tumour.

Having access to this technology in the operating theatre will allow neurosurgeons to accurately and confidently identify, during a surgical procedure, whether they have removed all the tumour, right when they need the information the most.

Working in partnership with the Rigby Foundation and Rigby Group, SCC also supports the charity’s Changemakers network as a Pioneer member. Through this, we have committed to supporting the charity for a total of three years to help the charity invest in equipment, spaces and resources for children and their families who requires the hospital’s support.

Livingston volunteering event

During September 2023, colleagues from our Livingston office used some of their volunteering leave to support Almond Valley - a local social enterprise charity who provide a range of facilities to the community including a city farm, museum, green spaces and play facilitates for local families to enjoy.

During the day, the team got involved with a range of activities including setting up sections of lighting for the charity’s upcoming Halloween and Christmas events along with preparing an area which will be set up as a ‘Halloween spooky walkway’ for visitors.