Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has become an increasingly important factor for employers over the past decade. Glassdoor recently reported that 75% of Millennials expect employers to take a stand on social issues, highlighting the need for organisations to ensure CSR has a prominent place on the agenda.
In the current climate, it is becoming increasingly difficult for businesses to find and retain staff. Therefore practices that improve employee satisfaction and the appeal of a business to future employees are significant.
At the Livingston James Group, we ensure a focus on four stakeholder groups – our clients, candidates, colleagues, and the communities we are part of. The first three are obviously crucial to the day to day running of our business, but we place the same importance on our community impact.
Throughout 2018 the team at the Livingston James Group has completed several tough challenges, embarked on fun adventures, and raised a significant amount of money for charities close to our hearts.
Each LJG employee is offered two CSR days to give something back to their community. These have been utilised in a variety of ways including helping charities directly; providing career advice and training to school leavers; organising and participating in charity football matches; scaling mountains; and two of our best athletes ran some unthinkable distances.
Each year the LJG leadership team chooses one physical event for as many staff to get involved in as possible. This year, we tackled the Martin Currie Rob Roy Challenge, involving a 14 mile run/walk and, for those who are brave enough, an additional 35 or 56 mile cycle, all on the picturesque Loch Tay. Approximately 25 staff took part, raising £3,700 for our chosen charity, Maggie’s Centres.
We also continue our partnership with the Wooden Spoon Charity with one of our Founding Directors, Jamie Livingston, chairing the charity committee. As a business we support them by organising and hosting several events. The stand out events included facilitating the Wooden Spoon Dinner in March, this year raising £50,000, the Wooden Spoon Lunch in May, raising £10,000 and the Wooden Spoon Wine Tasting which raised a record £9000 this year.
Arguably the most gruelling challenge this year was embarked upon by one of our Founding Directors, Andy Rogerson and the Head of Rutherford Cross East, Stephanie Livingston. They donned their lycra and running shoes to complete the ‘City to Summit’ challenge in July – a mammoth 19 hour challenge, involving a 15 mile run, 114 mile bike ride and 26 mile trail run (up, over and back down Ben Nevis)! Both Andy and Steph showed immense discipline with their training in the months running up to the event, culminating in the colossal feat of the day itself. Their efforts raised an amazing £5,000+ for the Brain Tumour Charity and almost £4,000 for Alzheimer Scotland. Congratulations again to both.
In October 2017 we opened our Manchester office who have been quick to get involved in several fundraising projects. With some keen cyclists in the team we decided to support the Manchester charity, TourdeManc, in organising three mass participation cycling events in the local community, helping to raise over £12,000 for three charities (Booth Centre for The Homeless, Haemotology & Transfusion Support (HaTS) & Forever Manchester community fund).
Other CSR highlights from 2018 have included:
- Several colleagues assisted and took part in the Brain Tumour Charity Walkathon
- The Glasgow office held a MacMillan coffee morning raising £100
- Two staff members ran marathons this year (London and Manchester) raising over £2,000
- Jonathan Donnelly of Rutherford Cross hosted our annual 5-a-side football tournament, seeing 16 teams from businesses across Glasgow getting involved. The event raised over £1000 for local charity, Good Morning Service, who were also the winning team on the day!
So at the end of another year of laughs, hikes, football, cycling, teaching, running and some less stressful ‘tasting’ we are pleased to say that our team of 40 dedicated colleagues have committed 80 days to good causes across the UK this year and, as a collective, have contributed to raising over £97,000. We would like to thank all of our clients, candidates and colleagues who have helped us achieve this for our communities and look forward to seeing you at one of our 2019 events.
