Royal Mail Group is restructuring its social responsibility programme
as the UK government considers the future of the state-owned postal
service.
The revised strategy has five themes: employee volunteering
opportunities; recruitment from socially excluded groups; community
work with schools; staff payroll giving, and a two-year support
programme for a charity chosen by employees.
Martin Blake, group head of social responsibility, said the intention
is to ‘bring all the strands of our different corporate responsibility
activities together’. He added: ‘The new strategy represents a much
more holistic approach and links back more closely to our business
units.’
As the group has the largest workforce in the UK and the government has
floated the idea of a partial privatization of Royal Mail in which the
staff would become partners, Blake sees the mobilization of the 190,000
staff through employee volunteering as critical to the restructuring.
As part of the new programme, each of the 4500 operating sites will
have a representative responsible for co-ordinating volunteer
activities. The service’s diversity campaign will focus on recruiting
homeless people, those with disabilities and ex-servicemen and women
through voluntary organizations.
Royal Mail Group intends to publish full details of its revamped
strategy in its third CSR report, expected to appear later this month.
The public feels that the post office division is slightly better at
taking its responsibilities to society seriously than the letter
delivery service, a 2003 MORI survey suggests.
