Comply Direct is an environmental consultancy and an expert-approved environmental compliance scheme that delivers cost-effective, innovative, and integrated environmental solutions to support UK businesses’ green agendas.
Founded in 2006 by Chairman Gareth Roberts, the team comprises 33 employees and is based on the Broughton Hall Business Park in North Yorkshire.
Comply Direct proudly supports over 1700 customers and is proud to be the only compliance scheme in the UK to have the Customer Service Excellence Standard and the Investors in People Gold Award.
We caught up with Comply Direct to discover what winning an award would mean to them and their plans for the future.
Why/how are you making work better?
We know that our employees are fundamental to our success. As a company, we recognise that our employees are our business, and without them performing at their best, we cannot drive the business forward. Therefore, we offer several benefits and initiatives to help staff to achieve a positive work-life balance.
Our culture at Comply Direct is formed from our company core values of trust, commitment and respect. These values apply to the delivery of our services, our employees, the environment and our local community. Employees display these attributes daily; they are motivated and enthusiastic about looking after the environment, supporting the wider community and inspiring a green generation.
The majority of our social responsibility work is driven by our staff and their interest in these areas. The company fully endorses these activities and have included some aspects of this in other company strategies. For example, raising money for charity and volunteering activities has been written into our Health and Wellbeing strategy since 2017.
Improving our environmental impact and supporting our wider community is fundamental to our business vision and mission. Our passion for doing the right thing for the environment is behind our business decisions and links with our service offering. We aim to be good corporate citizens in all business activities and want to give back to society. Therefore we actively encourage staff to divide their time between workplace duties and supporting Comply Direct’s nominated charities.
Like everything we do, we encourage employees to ‘always find a better way’ in their work. As part of the organisation’s ongoing development and growth, we encourage our staff via numerous channels to provide open and honest feedback about improving their working experience. On the back of feedback, we will always communicate with the team the actions to be taken, which could include implementing new benefits or changing existing ways of doing things.
Why did you enter The Investors in People Awards 2021?
Investors in People’s purpose is to make work better, which aligns with Comply Direct’s approach. We decided to enter the IIP awards as being shortlisted in a category that means so much to us by a standard that recognises and celebrates companies going that extra mile for their employees was something that we wanted to be a part of.
Are there any goals or challenges you hope an award will help you achieve or solve?
Social responsibility is a high priority for many individuals, especially in the recent COP26 conference; climate change is an ever-increasing concern. We’re currently going through a process of change and expansion, and leading the way with our environmental and social impact is more of a priority than ever before.
We think that being recognised by Investors in People for our social responsibility will help us attract and retain the right people who are aligned with our approach and showcase our efforts to our customers and suppliers alike.
Tell us what distinguishes you from other companies in the category you’re shortlisted in.
We can see that the companies shortlisted for an IIP award are all doing amazing things. However, we believe that our secret ingredient is the workplace culture at Comply Direct and our employees.
Their passion for doing the right thing for the environment, our customers, and the community fuels our initiatives here. Our staff care about their impact on their surroundings. They are innovative in their approach to how Comply Direct can play their part in reducing our environmental impact and supporting local communities and charities.
We are a small company, but as Greta Thunberg has said, “You’re never too small to make a difference”. Everything we do, we hope, will impact and influence our customers, our team and community.
What does being shortlisted mean to everyone at your company? (Feel free to include stories of people running around the office, crying or calling their parents).
It is a privilege to be shortlisted for this award, a clear indication of the dedication and hard work the whole team has invested in the business.
As an environmental company, our vision is to contribute to a more sustainable planet by empowering our partners to unleash their eco potential. Social Responsibility is embedded in our culture here.
Therefore, we are thrilled to be shortlisted in an important and meaningful category for our business approach and services.
What would it mean to win?
It would mean the absolute world to every member of the team if we won. Everything we do is a complete team effort, and each person has helped contribute to our social responsibility in some way. This could be from turning the radiators off when they’re not used to organising community recycling and volunteering projects.
How does being shortlisted benefit your customers?
By being shortlisted in the Social Responsibility category, we hope that customers will see that we’re committed to being their environmental partner of choice and that we practice what we preach.
Some of our customers already engage with us about their social responsibility practices. Still, it would be brilliant to engage more of our customers and suppliers to share their initiatives or even collaborate on joint projects together.
What can we expect to see from your organisation in the next 12 months? (And beyond!)
Our organisation will be going through a lot of exciting changes during the next 12 months. Throughout this time, our employees and customers remain our primary focus with everything that we do.
We will further focus our efforts on providing opportunities for our employees and customers to be responsible citizens and businesses. Some of the CSR initiatives we have lined up include:
- We have completed our initial application to become BCorp certified with the aim being full certification in 2022 – the ‘triple bottom line’ concept will drive our approach in all areas of our business, and we are currently working on reviewing our defined purpose, vision and values in alignment with this.
- In support of our pledge to net-zero and race to zero campaign, we are considering setting up an electric car salary sacrifice to make this greener form of transport more accessible to our employees. We will also be promoting and incentivising car sharing on a Thursday to help reduce fuel emissions.
- We have plans in place for our employees to volunteer with local education providers to support mock interview processes and career development.
- The 2022 team sporting challenge and chosen charity are yet to be determined. However, after the success of this year’s 50km walk in the Lake District, we are more determined than ever to beat this year’s fundraising efforts after raising over £4,000 for the charity MIND.
- Ahead of Black Friday on November 26th 2021, we are working with our local children’s charity SELFA to deliver a community waste electrical and batteries recycling project. This will include educating the children on the importance of recycling these items instead of sending them to landfills and should help to improve recycling rates in the area.
- We are in discussions to do further work with SELFA and local education providers to inspire a greener generation.
What advice would you give to anyone applying for The Investors in People Awards 2022?
If you believe that you’re doing something within your company that you’re proud of, then don’t be afraid to shout about it! Being recognised for the positive initiatives you have in place makes you and everyone involved feel great.
View more finalist case studies on our awards page.
