Corporate Social Responsibility
Corporate social responsibility is at the heart of what we do.
We always aim to behave ethically and are committed to creating positive changes in our key areas: Our People, Our Communities, Our Charity Partners, Our Environment and The Hymans Robertson Foundation. This focus is reflected in our business strategy and day to day activities, demonstrating our core values.
Our People
At Hymans Robertson, our people are the core of our success. Reflecting our four values – partnering, straightforward, friendly and confident – we make a promise to everyone in the firm that we will work with them to make this the best job they will ever have. Our iDeal brings this commitment to life, setting out the support and encouragement that the firm provides and ensuring that our people know exactly where they stand and why they belong here.
Attracting, retaining and developing a talented and diverse workforce is an essential part of our strategy and key to our ability to provide our clients with the best possible service. As well as providing positive opportunities, we encourage individuals to develop their full potential. We recognise the fundamental importance of diversity and inclusion and a proactive approach to wellbeing in the workplace. We support initiatives that provide fair pay; insisting that all staff employed directly or indirectly by us receive the Living Wage as a minimum.
Getting this right has helped us build a highly talented, motivated and engaged team – illustrated by our low turnover rates and employee net promoter score of 36 (year to September 2018).
Delivering better outcomes for our clients is what gets us up in the morning. We love solving problems and have definitely found that two heads (or more) are always better than one when it comes to finding the best answer. Diversity is the key. Combining different perspectives, styles, experience and skills are the magic ingredients. We are committed to ensure that everyone working with or for Hymans Robertson is treated fairly and equally and has the same opportunities. This commitment is set out in full in our Diversity and Inclusion policy.
One area of our focus has been gender. Like many businesses across the UK, we found women were under-represented at a senior level in the firm. We worked hard to improve this gender balance through reciprocal mentoring, flexible working practices, technology to support agile working and support for those returning from parental leave. We are pleased to report that women now represent more than 35% of our partners. Our work is far from finished however, and we continue to challenge unconscious bias and out-dated perceptions of work and career paths to increase the number of women progressing to the top level in our firm. You can find out more about how we are tackling the gender pay gap here.
However gender is just one aspect of diversity. Unconscious bias is diversity’s biggest enemy, and we make good use of our growing understanding of this to make Hymans Robertson an inclusive work place for all. Other initiatives currently underway include projects to increase the ethnic and social diversity of our job applicants, the roll-out of a suite of family-friendly measures, our participation in the ENEI’s ‘Disability Confident’ programme and measures to ensure that our employment offering and work environment speak to the LGBT+ communities in a compelling and engaging way.
To ensure that every voice is heard, our Diversity & Inclusion group, comprising individuals from across the firm, seeks feedback and ideas from all areas of the business on a regular basis. The group discusses topical issues, shares knowledge and experience and makes recommendations to senior management. Diversity & Inclusion initiatives, often driven by this group are supported across the firm by regular training and ‘Diversity Dialogues’ with external speakers.
Committed to paying the Living Wage
Hymans Robertson LLP is committed to ensuring that all directly employed and contracted staff receive fair remuneration for the job they perform. This is demonstrated through our commitment to pay all staff the Living Wage. This voluntary commitment requires all staff, whether employed directly, as contractors or through our subcontractors, to receive as a minimum the appropriate Living Wage rate, set each year by the Living Wage Foundation. These rates are based on research and reflect the levels of income required to meet a socially acceptable minimum standard of living.
Committed to ending slavery
The policies we have in place and our anti-slavery statement, reflect our commitment to acting ethically and with integrity in all our business relationships and to implementing and enforcing effective systems and controls to ensure slavery and human trafficking is not taking place anywhere in our business or supply chains.
Good for individuals, good for the community
Whether already a committed volunteer or wondering how to get involved, at Hymans Robertson we actively support and encourage all of our people in a wide range of charitable activity. At the very heart of this is supporting them in their commitments to give back to the communities we live and work in.
Each employee is entitled to one paid volunteer day per year; in 2017 our people contributed over 1,100 hours, supporting charities across the UK. Our volunteers can choose to work with their own favourite charities, or participate in team opportunities coordinated by our (volunteer-run) ‘Helping Hands’ teams in each of our offices. Last year’s activities included a children’s sports festival with SportInspired, a Christmas party with Home Start, the Annual Art Show with MS Revive and more than a few painting and gardening adventures with a number of other charities.
We also offer skilled volunteering opportunities, delivering financial education workshops to young people supported by our Financial Literacy programme partner charities. In 2017 we partnered with The Princes Trust, Mencap, TLG and Tomorrow’s People.
Read some of the highlights from 2016/17 in our CSR Annual Review:
Our Communities
In keeping with our belief that better futures aren’t down to chance, throughout 2017 we continued to develop our three core charitable areas:
- supporting our employees in their charitable commitments
- partnering with local communities through volunteering and donations
- partnering with national charities to run financial education programmes for young people
Helping young people
In 2015 we launched our most ambitious stream of activity, allocating around 1% of profits, along with our time, to help improve the financial literacy of disadvantaged young people.
We still have a long way to go, but to date we have reached over 300 young people, by working in partnership with Mencap, The Prince’s Trust, Tomorrow's People and TLG. In 2017 we began a new partnership with Sport Inspired, kicking off with the hugely successful World Youth Urban Games in Glasgow.
Our very determined aim is that by 2024 we will have made a difference to the lives of 10,000 disadvantaged young people, through financial education and employment opportunities, using our own skills in financial matters and our educated workforce.
Engaging locally
All four of our offices in London, Glasgow, Edinburgh and Birmingham have a local ‘Helping Hands’ team. Throughout the year they organise fundraising events and collections, facilitate volunteering days and work in partnership with a number of local charities. The approach varies in each office, supporting a local focus reflective of each office, as well as joined up fundraising events across all four offices. Over the years we have been able to support a wide variety of charities through both practical and skilled volunteering.
Doubling our efforts
We recognise our people are individuals and not just employees, and that for a number of (sometimes quite personal) reasons, they are involved in diverse charitable activities. We support their commitment by matching their fundraising efforts and providing time to volunteer. These charities are also typically well supported by colleagues in each office through monthly or quarterly fundraisers.
The firm provides an uplift on any donations made by employees through Give as You Earn, and we offer charity donations as raffle prizes at our Annual Staff Meeting, as well as charity donations for staff and client surveys.
Our Environment
As a professional services firm, Hymans Robertson’s impact on the environment is relatively small. However, we still believe that it is important to adopt new approaches that help to further lower our impact. We regularly review our processes, with the aim of reducing business travel, waste and our consumption of energy, water as well as other resources.
We are ESOS compliant and are ISO14001 accredited. Our approach is one of continuous improvement.
Commuting and Business Travel
We have taken a number of steps to reduce our carbon footprint associated with travel. These relate not just to business travel but also our employees’ commutes each day.
Improved video conferencing, tele-conferencing and online meeting facilities have encouraged a reduction in business travel between offices for internal meetings. We do, however, recognise that, as a professional services firm, contact with clients is still an essential element of our service.
We also offer employees a ‘cycle to work’ scheme which allows them to purchase a bicycle at reduced cost. We also provide secure storage and showering facilities. Interest free season ticket loans are available to employees, to encourage the use of public transport, with parking facilities either extremely limited or absent at each of our four offices.
Energy & Resource Consumption
Where possible, we purchase environmentally responsible products from likeminded companies and continuously monitor our energy, water and resource usage.
We have also been able to reduce our (sustainably sourced) paper usage by 20% by the introduction of a new secure printing strategy early in the year.
Recognising the limitations of occupying shared buildings, we work closely with the building management teams and other tenants to improve the overall energy and resource consumption in each of our offices. For example fitting movement sensor lights in each of our four offices.
Reducing our the waste our business produces
We manage all business waste according to reduce, re-use, recycle principles. We work closely with our suppliers to continually make improvements to reduce waste. We operate an In-house bottling system in all offices which has completely eliminated the use of plastic bottles (and also the need to transport bottled water).
All offices have segregated recycling facilities in break-out areas. With three of the four offices operating a ‘no individual waste bin’ policy. Old office and IT equipment is disposed through certified environmental waste management services providers.
As with resource usage, we work closely with the building management teams and other tenants to ensure that we successfully reduce the amount of waste that goes to landfill.
The Hymans Robertson Foundation
In 2017 The Hymans Robertson Foundation reached a highly significant milestone with its registration as a charity in England & Wales (1168951) and Scotland (SC046931). This marks the culmination of a great deal of hard work by people across the firm and is a very satisfying achievement.
The original idea behind setting up the Foundation was the aim to make a real difference to the lives of disadvantaged young people by helping to improve their financial literacy. The financial literacy ambition remains a key component of the Foundation objectives and the work in this area is very active through the Hymans Robertson Financial Literacy Programme.
In addition, over the last year, the Foundation remit has expanded, with the whole 2% of firm profits (allocated to charitable activities) coming under the oversight of the Foundation Trustees. The key reason for making this change was to provide more transparency and oversight of our charitable donations. As such the Foundation has relatively broad charitable objectives (as defined in our registration). These are:
- The advancement of education;
- The relief of those in need, by reason of youth, age, ill health, disability, financial hardship or other disadvantage;
- The advancement of health or the saving of lives.
This allows for flexibility (for future programmes) and enables us to oversee the majority of charitable support by the Trustees. The majority of charitable donations are distributed through the Hymans Robertson Foundation, and in particular, but not exclusively, by the provision of grants to support activities carried on in pursuance of any of the above purposes.
Charitable donations are linked to either volunteering or fundraising. These are currently organised into three strands:
- Financial Literacy – Partnering with a small number of charities we offer workshops to disadvantaged young people to build confidence and enhance opportunities for the future.
- Local Community Support – each local office partners with a small number of local charities, offering all kinds of support (primarily volunteering and in kind donations)
- Matched Giving – employees are supported in their own fundraising efforts for charities of importance to the individual.
The Hymans Robertson Foundation Trustees
The independence of the Hymans Robertson Foundation is the responsibility of the Trustees, appointed by the Board of Hymans Robertson LLP. The Trustees oversee all the charitable activities in the firm working closely with individuals in each of the three strands.
The Trustees of the Hymans Robertson Foundation have a strong representation from the Board. This commitment reflects the importance Hymans Robertson LLP places on the Foundation’s activities.
Trustees of the Hymans Robertson Foundation
Gail Paterson (Chair)
Clare Gardner (Secretary)
James Entwisle
Tracey Randall
Graham Stevens
Gill Tait
Application for Funding
While seeking to respond to all requests for information, the Hymans Robertson Foundation normally only approaches those charitable organisations which it believes can help in the delivery of its current campaigns.