CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY

Search the Premier Farnell site
Advanced Search

WORKPLACE AND COMMUNITY

We strive to be recognised by existing and potential future employees as a responsible employer that values its people and provides an environment in which they can develop their skills and make a contribution to the success of the business. We also wish to make a contribution to the communities in which we operate, building goodwill and a reputation as a good neighbour and employer.

We believe that our investments in our employees and the communities in which we operate help to build a high-performing workforce with a common set of business values that result in an improved customer experience and positive returns for the Company.

 

INVESTMENT IN OUR PEOPLE

Leadership development and succession planning are critical for consistent and ongoing high performance.

Attracting talented people and retaining the talent we have in the Group is of the utmost importance for continued success. Our commitment to personal development is unwavering. All employees meet with their managers at least every six months to review performance and talk about career aspirations, which are included in an aspiration development plan.

eLife, a Group initiative, was created in order to encourage employees to embrace the web and improve innovation. Through eLife we have introduced an online performance management and objective setting tool that gives employees and managers access to their performance reviews and objectives year round.

Employees are encouraged to take one hour a week for personal development. This time is used in a variety of ways including attending sales training in order to become a more effective seller, job shadowing a role or studying modules in our Online Learning Centre. Capability ladders have also been created for certain functions; these ladders are used by employees in order to understand what they need and how they can target their own personal development for career progression. These ladders have been so popular that they will be expanded for additional functions

We recognise the importance of our employees’ contribution to our community investment programme, and we are transparent around the business benefits around employee development that we believe are accessible to us through engaging with the communities in which we operate.

During 2009, we will be investigating a system to clearly link employees’ personal development targets to volunteering activities in the community. This investigation is expected to deliver plans for a system that will provide a number of benefits to the business, including;

• Improved visibility of the development opportunities in volunteer activity
• The opportunity for employees to identify volunteering opportunities that best fit the skills that they need to develop
• Access to alternative and innovative forms of talent development
• An increase in employee engagement with the community investment programme

COMMUNITY INVESTMENT AND CHARITABLE GIVING

Our Policies

Our Group Community Investment Strategy enables employees to apply to volunteer their time to good causes and our Charitable Giving and Volunteering policies allows this time to be taken within working hours. All our businesses undertake activities in their local communities.

Click here to view our Community Investment Strategy and Charitable Giving Policy
Click here to view our Volunteering Policy guidance

The Charitable Giving policy has encouraged employees to seek the Group’s support in making a difference to their good causes from the Group’s charity budget, spending £19,239 in 2009.

Click here to view our Charitable Donations Register 2007 | 2008
Click here to view our Employee Volunteering Register 2007 | 2008
Click here to view our Community Investment Log 2009

Association with Community organisations

The Group joined Business in the Community in 2005, a movement of over 800 UK companies committed to improving their impact on society, and we have now participated in the Business in the Community Corporate Responsibility Index for three years. The results of the 2008 CR Index survey placed the company in the Gold band.

Click here to view our Business in the Community Feedback Reports 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009

 

In the US, all of our businesses participate in the United Way, an umbrella organization for a number of charities. Premier Farnell supports United Way through pledge drives and annual fundraising events.

 

Premier Farnell engage with Leeds Ahead, an award-winning social business, who provide links and support to the business to enable it to track, monitor and manage our Leeds community investment programme, with a particular focus around feedback tracking and reporting.

Our Community Partners

Premier Farnell has entered into three long-term partnerships with community organisations in Leeds. Based on service-level agreements which clearly define our commitments to the groups, the partnerships are designed to deliver sustainable and measurable benefits to both the business and the community groups.

Our partners in Leeds are:

• Armley Helping Hands
• Christ Church CoE Primary School, Upper Armley 
• Farnley Park Maths & Computing College

Premier Farnell recognises that these types of activity not only benefit the community groups involved but also deliver business benefits in the training and development of those employees who participate, as well as opportunities for positive public relations. Investment in the local community is a key part of our leadership development programme, as well as the development of our operational employees.

Engaging on matters of public policy

Premier Farnell is committed to transparency in its engagements with government bodies on matters of public policy. In accordance with our lobbying policy, we will make a list of all interactions with national governments available on this page annually.

Click here to view our Lobbying Policy
Premier Farnell 2009 lobbying report

Our targets for 2009/10

We have expanded the number of targets that we publish for our workplace and community programmes to better reflect our planned activities for 2009/10.

Target 2009	Progress	Target 2010
Achieve Platinum status in the Business in the Community Corporate Responsibility Index.		Drive the further integration of CSR within the business and achieve the Platinum Plus accreditation from the Business in the Community CR Index by the end of FY13.
Continue to monitor the rates and causes of employee absenteeism and take actions to achieve reductions.	We have monitored and published the absenteeism rates of colleagues in our Contact Centres and Distribution Centres. 3 facilities have missed their targets, and we have described the plans to address these issues during FY11.	Continue to monitor the rates and causes of employee absenteeism and take actions to achieve reductions.
Investigate an integrated system to link developmental objectives with volunteering activity, enabling the organisation to track employees’ personal development through volunteering activities more accurately.	We have developed a pilot volunteering portal as part of our Online Learning Centre which is currently available to employees based in Leeds in order to test the system. The portal allows employees to view currently-available types of volunteering activities and to register to participate. The volunteering process includes prospective volunteers’ line managers and the personal development planning system to ensure a rounded approach to focusing on and tracking employee development through volunteering.	Run the portal for Leeds-based employees, and expand the offering to employees based in India as a second pilot project. Track the number of employees using the system and also the employees who derive a benefit from doing so, based on performance ratings by their line managers during review processes. Subject to a successful pilot period, begin implementing the system for other businesses where community partnerships are in place.
Improve the system for measuring the outcomes and benefits of community investment initiatives.	The online portal that has been developed will allow the Group to better track the developmental benefits of employee volunteering. Where we have partnership agreements that include specific activities, we have begun to identify success criteria and metrics against which our performance in, and the outcome of the activity can be measured.	Collect data on employee development and the benefits to the local community of the investment activities undertaken during the year, and use this data to assess the quality and impacts of our activities.
Develop a robust volunteering policy guide to assist employees and their line managers in increasing the Group’s community involvement.	The Group has published a volunteering policy guide to accompany the updated community investment policy and charitable giving strategy document. This guide clarifies the Group’s approach to employee volunteering and the responsibilities of, and opportunities open to employees who wish to participate.