Introduction
Fair Work First is the flagship policy by the Scottish Government to promote fair work and high-quality work across organisations in Scotland.
As a business that works across the breadth of the UK, we’re proud to pledge to being a Fair Work First organisation and adopt fair working practices in seven key areas:
- Appropriate channels for effective voice, such as trade union recognition
- Investment in workforce development
- No inappropriate use of zero-hour contracts
- Action to tackle the gender pay gap and create a more diverse and inclusive workplace
- Payment of the real Living Wage
- Offer flexible and family friendly working practices for everyone from day one
- Oppose the use of fire and rehire practices
Work is a key part of our adult lives, and we’re dedicated to put wellbeing, inclusivity and progression at the forefront of that. We already have several initiatives which are used widely within our organisation, including access to an Employee Assistance Programme for all permanent team members, access to wellbeing sessions and champions, an online training portal through Udemy, certification as a Disability Confident Employer, and more.
What are we already doing to be Fair Work First?
Our strategies and expectations are clearly articulated and regularly reviewed throughout our organisation. We have established a link between our vision, values and principles and discuss relevant corporate initiatives when required or at least during our All Hands Calls that occur quarterly.
We actively seek our partnerships with likeminded organisations and always include partners and customers in our activities where it is commercially viable to do so. This includes giving them appropriate access to our Microsoft Teams environment for collaboration best practices.
We have weaved Fair Work First principles into our terms, conditions, and supplier agreements. Similarly, we have reviewed our employee Terms and Conditions in 2024 and included new clauses to encourage Fair Work First, we also review our terms and conditions on a yearly basis.
Each critical business areas has a dedicated head of service, who has built a team to deliver our expectations. Each head of service is a member of the leadership team, directly reporting in our Executive Board to discuss progress. This has the added benefit of demonstrating the importance of Fair Work First initiatives at our very highest corporate level.
Like with all initiatives we intend to focus and evolve our DEI and Wellbeing bringing our staff along on the journey.
Effective voice
We recognise that giving our employees, partners and customers channels to effectively engage with us is the minimum, baseline requirement. However, we also understand that it is critical to get this part right else it hampers many other areas of activity. We believe that effective engagement must be open, transparent and two-way.
We have created several clearly defined communication events that encourage voices to be heard. Obvious events such as our regular All Hands Calls are well attended and as an organisation that work remotely, we hold monthly regional connection days as well as quarterly company connection days. However, a fantastic compliment to these events is the calendar of ‘Learning Hour’ activities covering many areas of Civiteq life.
Similar events in the Wellbeing space take place as a ‘Walk & Talk’ – what better way to encourage physical wellbeing – and always, participation is part of our working day! We also host sessions on social wellbeing and mental wellbeing, and we have also welcomed external experts to host sessions on financial wellbeing.
We have encouraged Communities of Practice (CoP) that have established the practical needs (and feedback) of our staff, partners and customers in core operational and strategic areas of our business. The CoPs provide an effective mechanism for collective bargaining and therefore an effective voice in a sector that traditionally does not support Trade Union activity.
We recently have introduced our Engage portal, which is a communication tool where we encourage our colleagues to share information on various topics. We carry out regular company surveys generate anonymous feedback from colleagues. We find this survey provides our colleagues with the opportunity to speak and be listened to. The results are key performance indicators that underpin our corporate strategy. We formally survey on an annual basis and include several pulse exercises during the year to take a temperature check on our progress. All feedback is used to generate future strategic initiatives and feedback plus tactical actions to deliver success are shared with the business to keep them informed and to show that their feedback is appreciated and listened to!
Diverse and inclusive workplace
We believe that everyone should have an equal opportunity to progress and develop within our organisation, regardless of any other factor that may be used to differentiate. Whilst this is, of course, a legal requirement, we passionately believe in being the kind of organisation that is naturally inclusive.
We have reviewed our job advertising, specifications, and job descriptions to ensure the language contained within includes no bias. Furthermore, we have adjusted our job descriptions to make sure they are accessible to all.
We undertook an internal and external drive to showcase the many examples of flexible working that exist within our organisation to encourage more participants with different work patterns. As our customer success is built on outcomes (and not time) this should be an easy win, but often customer expectation on attendance is the limiting factor – so we have defined flexible employee conditions to our Statements of Work.
At Civiteq we feel it is important that we publicly share the difference in average female earnings compared to average male earnings. Therefore, even though we employ less than 250 people so are not required by government regulation to publish this information, we choose to share it. 2024 was the fourth year we reported our gender pay gap position. Our gender mix stands at 59:41 (male: female), which is a balanced position, 70% of our leadership roles (executive team, board, heads of service and non-executive directors) are held by women, which continues the positive progress from previous year. Our median pay gap is currently 3.4% and our mean gap is 4.3%.
In July 2024 we were accredited with being a menopause friendly workplace, which was achieved in partnership with Henpecked and we have three colleagues who are fully trained to offer their expertise to our customers as part of our social value.
In 2024 we were ranked in the Top consultancy list that the FT and Statista publish, along with being added to Management Today’s Top 100 management consultancies for the great work we do for public services.
Secure employment
Paying the living wage and opposing hour contracts, and hire and rehire practices
Civiteq has never used, nor intends to use, zero-hour contracts. We believe in creating open employment avenues for associates, internships, apprenticeships.
Our pay scales ensure that the Real Living Wage is more than covered in each role within our company. Civiteq can confirm that all of our employees are paid at least the real living wage, which our lowest paid 12.5% above the minimum wage. Our median pay gap is currently 3.4% and our mean gap is 4.3%.
All our colleagues are given 4 days paid time off to be spent on volunteering activity of their choice and often use this as part of our social value on giving back to communities.
Civiteq has never used, nor intends to use, hire and rehire practices.
Workforce development
We recognise that we can spend a significant amount of time at work. As referenced earlier, we believe the gift of a career is a sacred event and understand that we must work hard to nurture that gift. It has been noted already how we look to engage our staff, develop their skills and allow them to benefit society.
Our resourcing team are tasked with supporting all of our permanent staff and associates in the execution of their deployments. We check in to make sure they are happy and healthy, and enjoying their assignments. Within HR, we retain a significant fund for external training, which is fully used each year. previous external training has included qualifications in ACCA finance, ITIL5, AGMA Agile Project Management, and GDPR/DPO Certification. Our management staff are trained to understand career journeys and to create the opportunities in which staff can learn and succeed! All staff are encouraged to develop their skills and are encourages into lateral promotion if they are interested. We recognise that the gift of an employee’s career is a generous one and that once we are given it, we should protect it and work to develop it.
We have allocated £750 per colleague for any external training of their choice to further development. Over the last 12 months we have been working to ensure that self-service learning underpins all that we do. Every employee has access to training and is encouraged to invest in themselves. By creating this culture, we expect to capture earlier the training and development needs of our employees and to build a greater confidence (through skills growth) and therefore level the opportunity for all to be ready for promotion. Activity in this area continues at pace to evolve further.
On top of this, we have a dedicated team who focus their activity on the wellbeing of our staff. This group creates activities within the mental, physical, social and financial wellbeing areas. To support, we also have an Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) for specific support needs. We regularly organise events to encourage staff to develop themselves in each of these areas, recently running sessions on financial planning and the positive impacts of great sleep!
Flexible and family working practices
We are fully remote, and to ensure we have equality we have in place flexible working including compressed hours allowing us to attract talented consultants who are returning back to work after a period of absence, along with those that have other life commitments, enabling a work/life balance for all. We operate using a timesheet policy allowing our workforce to complete their work in their own time, giving massive flexibility to support families and such.
All employees are given their IT equipment before day one, so they are ready top join the team immediately, as well as a DSI budget to spend on further enhancements such as a chair or desk if required. In 2021, we delivered the Government Equalities Office (GEO) and Local Government Association (LGA) sponsored Returner’s Programme for people returning to work after a care-related break. We successfully helped up to 70 people undertake a dedicated 3-month structured learning and development intervention to facilitate their upskilling. The initiative also enabled access to council related job opportunities. Additionally, we work with several organisations to support them in their endeavours to deliver a local Living Wage, ensuring that anyone brought into the programme is done so at the appropriate remuneration.
The wellbeing of our people is extremely important to us. That’s why we’ve invested in and implemented a fantastic programme offering an Employee Assistance Programme, mental health support tools and e-learning training, accompanied by internal initiatives led by our own people. 100% of our people are covered by the programme, and family members have access to counselling and support.
During the pandemic, our number one priority has been our people’s health and wellbeing. We strive to continue to break the stigma surrounding mental health by fostering a workplace environment where people feel comfortable engaging in open, honest dialogue about mental health. We also have a strategic driver to make working for the company as simple and easy as possible which includes investing in simple self-service tools. These include our automated expenses system and use of company credit via Pleo. We have recently implemented our new HR system Bamboo which allows for one place for all HR related topics, such as Annual leave, sickness booking, any other related time out, along with objectives and development.