This past year our focus has very much been on creating a culture whereby the business and its people can thrive. We’re encouraging continuous development and have transformed our portfolio of high quality technology services and products, all supported by a team of people committed to successfully delivering a sustainable strategy for the future.
On the 26th November four colleagues celebrated their long service awards. They had lunch with our MD, Phil Jones, where they chatted about their careers at Brother and what their futures hold. A combined total of 90 years' service is a great achievement.
Our Community Engagement manager, Sam Johnson, shared how we use HR metrics to maintain platinum status. Our structured and tailored L&D programme helps monitor and reward employees' performance and increase satisfaction and retention.
In September, the Tour of Britain passed through Tameside, we were the official Results and Print Partner for the race. To celebrate we worked with Stalybridge Celtic FC and Tameside Council to create this warm welcome. Find out more about Brother's involvement with UK cycling here.
Our business is driven by our culture and corporate goals. These are set by Brother Industries Ltd. our Japanese headquarters and we adapt them to suit our local business values as a sales office, our response to global initiatives is different to those of a manufacturing plant or a research facility.
Our people drive everything we do, so we provide them with the support to live happy, healthy and fruitful lives. To do this, we have a well-developed Health and Well-being Programme, recognised by Investors in People, and an award-winning Learning and Development Strategy.
As one of the largest businesses in Tameside, we feel we have a responsibility to assist our local community where we can. We also recognise that our community engagement can bring other benefits to our business. Our learning and development activities support community involvement, with those undertaking these initiatives benefiting from increased confidence, a sense of well-being and a greater understanding of diversity in all its forms.
We aim to use our strategic values to help strengthen our local economy, boost colleague morale and raise our brand profile with our customers.
Customers are the life blood of any business. Serving our customers well is vitally important to maintaining and growing our sales each year. This is achieved by delivering the best products and services we can.
Our customers fall into two groups, the end user who ultimately buys and uses our products and the channel customer who provides the means of getting our products to them. No matter what kind of customer we deal with though, we pride ourselves in providing the highest standard of service and support in the business.
It is important for us as a business to invest in developing long and fruitful relationships with our Business partners. We not only like to work with the best, but we like to find some form of synergy and where possible, source partnerships locally. Our partners help us to deliver our social values, particularly around education and environmental sustainability.
We have always had a strong commitment to the environment, which is why we recently transitioned to the latest version of 14001:2015 quality standard. We have accomplishing major milestones, such as Zero waste to landfill and being awarded the Queen's Award for Enterprise: Sustainable Development in both 2011 and again in 2018. Whilst we continue to meet these requirements and strive for best practice in our sustainable practices, we now focus our efforts on raising awareness and helping our customers to become more sustainable, often with the aid of our sister companies, Brother Industries UK and Brother Slovakia.
Brother UK regularly receives industry awards and certifications. These accolades help us to attract, retain and develop the very best talent in the sector.
Recently, we were honoured to be presented with The Queen's Award for Enterprise: Sustainable Development, as well as being accredited by the Association of Professional Sales (APS) after passing an ethical sales assessment.
We have a long-standing commitment to operating in a responsible way. This commitment is enshrined in our Global Charter which sets out moral and behavioural codes, and helps us to manage our relationship with associates, customers, business partners, shareholders and our community.
