We have always prided ourselves on doing the right thing – whether that is by our staff, clients, partners or the community. And by ‘community’, we mean our industry, professional networks and the places where we live. In 2021, we took the decision to invest in a more robust social value strategy to help us understand what we do well, and to identify opportunities where we can increase the positive difference we make.
When Wendy Morgan set up Jumar in the late 1990s, it was a comparatively small, family run business. As it expanded into the global company it is today, it needed to ensure that its team grew in a way that allowed it to reflect the needs of its clients, and the diversity of society.
Jumar has long been at the forefront of championing diversity and tackling social inequality. We have had a long and successful history of working with local communities, providing mentoring and career assistance, developing apprentices and recruiting from under-represented groups.
Members of staff are actively involved in professional networks promoting, amongst others, women in technology and the need to inspire marginalised groups into IT and other professional disciplines. Our diversity and inclusion policy is a core part of our HR strategy, and is regularly reported on at board level.
This seemingly vague term describes something that we have always done as a company – but it’s only recently taken on this label. But we don’t want it to be just a label. We want to make sure that we are taking real and tangible action to ensure we are adding social value in everything we do. The starting point is, therefore, to measure the value we add to society – meaning we can then look at ways to increase it.
We have invested in an independently audited accreditation to analyse our social and local economic value impact, and will measure this yearly in line with recognised frameworks and metrics. We are using the National TOMs methodology to quantify our impact on jobs, innovation, diversity, the environment and personal development, and will report on this when complete.
In short, we want to show that social value within Jumar is a real thing, and not just a passing buzzword.
Jumar is delighted to announce that is has become carbon neutral business, and is now working towards carbon positive status.
Our detailed Carbon Reduction Plan allows us to understand our carbon footprint, enabling us to identify opportunities to reduce our impact as well as providing metrics to enable us to offset where reduction is not yet possible.
Environmental Social and Governance (ESG) are embedded into our Social Value and People policies, and we are working hard to increase the positive impact we make on the environment and society as a whole.
All these initiatives are detailed in the Carbon Reduction Plan, and we welcome the opportunity to discuss any element of it with clients, suppliers and any other interested stakeholder.
Companies of a particular size are obliged to publish an annual slavery and trafficking statement.
While we’re not quite that big – yet - we are nonetheless mindful of the Modern Slavery Act. We, therefore make sure that our remuneration, working time and health and safety policies all comply with the relevant UK and EU legislation such as the National Minimum Wage Regulations.
We also require our suppliers to sign up to the obligations in the act, and have controls in place over the signing-up of new suppliers.