Our Corporate Social Responsibility Policy

Introduction

This Corporate Social Responsibility Policy complements our core business values and demonstrates our commitment to help support, develop and inspire our community to be a better and fairer place to live and work.

This is of particular importance to us in Bridlington, the East Riding of Yorkshire’s largest town where we have continued to operate our head office for 26 years and focus our community efforts in supporting disadvantaged and vulnerable young people, extending to neighbouring areas such as Hull and Scarborough.

As a family business with team members who have developed locally, we believe it is more important than ever to help our hometown prosper and be the very best it can be. The long-term economic decline of Bridlington and Scarborough as traditional seaside resorts has produced high levels of deprivation, below average household incomes, low levels of educational and skills attainment compounded by worklessness, drug misuse, seasonal unemployment and limited job opportunities. Bridlington and Scarborough are in the 5-10 per cent most deprived and disadvantaged communities in England with correspondingly low levels of social mobility.

Understanding these local challenges, especially the importance for our young disadvantaged and vulnerable people of finding meaningful work, career development and social interaction is at the heart of Hudson's Corporate and Social Responsibilities.

We are also committed to creating a positive culture of innovation and sustainability within our own workforce and through wider community projects.

Scope

As the UK’s largest Audit, Contract and Payroll company to the construction industry, we are committed to complying with all our legal obligations, working in partnership with our suppliers and providing our customers with the very best service and protection in a responsible and ethical way.

Through ISO:9001:2015 we employ systems and procedures that ensure we comply and consider our business impact, business risks and service quality.

Our commitment to the local area has been recognised by winning the Hull Business Awards 2020 in the ‘Contribution to East Riding’ category for our initiative to create opportunities for young people through skilled work, sport and arts.

Focus of Our Policy

Our policy is based around four key areas:

Our Community

By helping to play an active and important role in our local community by providing initiatives and opportunities for people of all ages, particularly young people from diverse backgrounds in Bridlington and those geographic areas close to us like Hull and Scarborough.

We do this by:

• Actively running and promoting our own apprenticeship sponsorship scheme giving training opportunities to a diverse range of young adults particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds wanting to learn ‘on the job’ skills which can last a lifetime.
• Paying the full costs of a youth development officer and vehicle at Bridlington Rugby Union Football Club to visit local schools promoting rugby as a sport for all and developing the number of junior players from the local area being interested in playing the sport and supporting our local rugby club.
• Providing the opportunity for young people aged between 8 and 21 to enjoy free music workshops by covering the running costs of Remarkable Arts Education Entertainment company. This enables them to learn tangible and practical skills, open to all with no social or other barriers, and building valuable social skills, experience of team working, personal self-confidence, self-esteem and self-belief.
• Actively supporting local and national homeless charities by providing direct funding for the provision of Christmas meals through the Crisis charity and more locally through the Real Aid food redistribution scheme, a food bank in Bridlington along with The Hinge Centre and Kingfisher Café Charities.
• Donating office equipment such as IT equipment and office furniture to regional projects. One project supports and provides training to ex-offenders and their rehabilitation back into society to give them the necessary skills to find gainful employment. Another is the Schoolgirl Mums’ Unit in Hull, a facility providing education, care and support usually for marginalised and disadvantaged young mothers.
• Buying and sourcing office equipment and supplies from local businesses to support the local economy, enabling them to employ local people. Suppliers include local refuse business, print business, recruitment company, milkman and stationery shop.
• Encouraging our employees to support local charities, local ‘good causes’ and to raise awareness and/or money for them.
• Actively support our customer base within the local and national charities they work with through donations.
• Championing our customer base with active support for the local and national charities they work with.
• Working alongside the Lighthouse Club – The Construction Industry Charity to promote its vital services to construction workers and their families for emotional, physical and financial wellbeing and support at times of severe hardship, stress and anxiety.

Our People

• Striving to ensure all our employees enjoy their work and have opportunities to develop their skills through training and development and social events to build team spirit and mutual respect.
• Looking to create employment opportunities within our local area and actively look for ways in which we can promote and increase the diversity of our workforce.
• Maintaining high standards of health and safety and doing everything we can to protect the health, safety and welfare of our employees.
• Supporting and understanding employee wellbeing, encouraging staff to maintain an appropriate work-life balance with the introduction of 3 mental health first aiders, hosting mental health workshops and signposting services available to employees who might need specialised support.
• The launch of Hudson’s Employee Wellbeing Programme powered by Health Assured. Where employees have access to wellbeing and mental health support as and when they need it.

Environmental Management

• Managing our impact on the environment in a responsible and ethical manner and encouraging all our employees to have a sense of responsibility for managing their own impact on the environment.
• Only printing what is necessary and recycling our paper waste for toilet rolls and sending our garden waste to a local company for recycling.
• Operating a car-sharing scheme and a cycle-to-work scheme for all our employees to reduce their environmental impact on short journeys to work and promote the health benefits to them.
• Using virtual meetings to avoid unnecessary travel to reduce our carbon impact.
• Installing office equipment and LED lighting which are more sustainable and using machines with auto-off facilities.

Our Customers

• Providing industry representation on behalf of our client base of 2,600 construction SMEs.
• Producing briefing papers for our local MP to share with Number 10, HM Treasury and HM Revenue and Customs on issues affecting the construction industry.
• Campaigning to reform the funding and provision of construction industry training to make it more responsive to small businesses and less biased towards large companies.
• Sharing relevant industry news and views to trade media titles and featuring regularly in the local, regional, trade and national media.
• Highlighting the economic contribution of highly skilled subcontractors through ongoing support for the Centre for Research on Self-Employment think tank and extensive research led by Professor Andrew Burke.
• Supplying regular statistics on labour demand to inform Bank of England policymakers on the latest trends in the construction industry.

Hudson is:

• Constantly striving to provide efficient, value for money, high quality and dependable services to all our customers old and new.
• Ensuring our employees act in an honest and professional manner when dealing with our customers.
• Making sure all our employees remain aware they are trusted with sensitive information.
• Ensuring our customers are protected 100 per cent by the Hudson guarantee to eliminate the risk of sub-contractors being classified as employees by the HMRC.
• Supporting them with their Corporate and Social responsibilities.

Responsibility

We have a strong and enduring commitment to our community and are here for the long term.

Robert Whitelaw, HR and Development Manager, Hudson Contract Limited is responsible for the annual review and updating of this Policy and for ensuring that all Company employees are aware of it and understand their responsibilities.