It’s only natural to do the right thing for our customers. We’re in the business of providing value for money and excellent support. But we also strive to do the right thing for our employees, our communities and our environment.

Workplace

Work Life Balance
We believe that work should be fun and everyone should have a good work life balance. Therefore, whilst we encourage employees to challenge themselves, we provide a friendly and supportive environment and we don’t expect anyone to work any extra hours.

"If you enjoy your job, it’ll never feel like work."

Employee Consultation
The opinions of our employees are important to us and the informal culture of our business lends itself to individuals expressing their ideas and opinions at any time to anyone in the business, including the directors.

In addition, we have formal communication processes in place:

• Regular company info-social events attended by everyone in the business.
• An Employee Forum attended by elected employee representatives from each area of the business.
• Surveys conducted periodically to gauge employee opinion on a number of matters.

Diversity
We want a diverse workforce that reflects our local community in terms of age, gender, ethnic background and disability. To this end we manage our attraction and selection processes as well as the benefits we offer to encourage a diverse workforce.

Community

We believe in working with and supporting relevant projects within our local community that matter to our employees. At present we support the following:

Ollerton Football Club  www.ollertontownfc.co.uk
We are proud to be the main sponsor of Ollerton F.C. We are supporting them financially and with fundraising efforts to ensure the fantastic management and coaching team can continue to offer players, in particular over 50 local children and their families in its 4 youth teams, invaluable sports and social opportunities.

The Dukeries Community College  www.dukeries.notts.sch.uk
We support our local educational establishment on an ongoing basis by offering work placements and projects to business studies students. We also offer a number of local school children the opportunity to complete work experience with us.

Recycling Ollerton and Boughton (R.O.B.)  www.recyclingollerton.co.uk
We support R.O.B. a local recycling community led and owned by a charitable enterprise that provides 20 work placements for adults with learning disabilities. We work in partnership to separate and recycle a variety of office waste materials including paper, cardboard, plastic, glass and aluminium cans.

Fundraising Events
In addition to our ongoing partnerships with local groups, our employees also initiate and support various fundraising events for local causes and charities. In August 2008 a team of employees from across the business completed the 3 Peaks Challenge, climbing Ben Nevis, Scafell Pike and Snowdon in under 24 hours in order to raise money for a local man diagnosed with a brain tumour. Then in 2009 a number of employees completed a Welsh 3000m challenge to raise money for the local Bluebell Wood Hospice.

Environment

Sherwood Energy Village  (www.sev.org.uk)
Our Head Office is located within Sherwood Energy Village (SEV) in Ollerton, a practical social enterprise regeneration project on a former colliery site. The vision and concept of the site is to provide a nice place to live, work, learn and play. The energy village strives to be different from the typical “industrial park” and encourages energy efficiency and biodiversity through its design. For example, it incorporates swales in its design to hold surface water for 2 days to reduce flood risk to the River Trent. The energy village also has strict rules to prevent the emission of noxious substances into the surrounding environment.

Recycling  (www.recyclingollerton.co.uk)
To support our environment we have Recycling Co-ordinators and actively encourage all employees within our offices to separate waste materials for recycling including paper, cardboard, plastic, glass and aluminium cans. We work with local charity R.O.B. who collect and recycle materials on a weekly basis.