Two years ago Helen Bolton, facilities manager at Ceuta Healthcare, was looking for a new way to communicate health and safety to the company’s 200 employees.  

“We had everything in place – we had managers’ support, we had induction processes, we gave staff driver handbooks and got them to sign them, we did driver training - but I was still concerned,” Bolton says. “Was there a gap there? If someone had a serious accident is it enough to say ‘well a year ago you signed this?’  

“We needed a new way to drip feed information to staff and keep the policy fresh.”

Bolton was also looking to remind staff about the environment and to draw attention to the company’s charity work.

“I needed a framework to put these elements together,” she says.

She turned to a Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) brochure which her leasing provider Arval had given her.

“I took the brochure to the managing director and said, ‘We do all the things that are in there but our policies are getting lost’.”

Bolton suggested setting up a CSR team that would bring everything together and have a proper communication strategy so that CSR was embedded in the company culture.

The managing director’s response was: “Brilliant, let’s get the team together.”

Bolton set up a team consisting of representatives from HR and the board.

They decided to include CSR in the company’s corporate update which is communicated to staff every two months.

The themes are health and safety, the environment and charity with updates for each.

For example, under ‘health and safety’ staff might be advised about driving in snow and icy conditions and the company policy on this, backed up with winter packs being handed out to drivers.

An employee magazine which is published on a quarterly basis reiterates what staff have been told in the company update.

CSR initiatives are reported to the board every quarter.

Ceuta Healthcare has since been awarded ‘gold status’ by Investors in People.

“We wouldn’t have been able to achieve that without CSR,” says Bolton.