The charter covers seven key areas -
Secure work
At DATS this means that our whole team is employed on contracts that reflect their actual hours worked, we have no zero hour contracts and we make our salaries and contracted hours clear throughout the recruitment process.
Pay
We always pay at least the Real Living Wage, which is an independently calculated rate based on what people need to get by and have a good quality of life. Should any of our team fall ill, they are also safe in the knowledge that they won’t be penalised for this at the end of the month.
Recruitment
For us this is all about striving for our adverts to be spread far and wide to ensure that they are seen by as diverse a group of people as possible. In order to eliminate unconscious bias from the process, all candidates are interviewed by a number of different people from our team. We are also working on the development of a fully anonymised recruitment process.
Health & Wellbeing
We would be nothing without our people and we accept they are all individuals and have different needs at different times. We have a range of policies to support our colleagues through the different stages of their lives such as maternity, moving house and personal development. Everyone in the team has free access to an employee assistance programme through our partners at Spectrum Life.
Flexible work
We appreciate that different working styles suit different people and we have a range of options for our teams - these include the choice to work from home or from our office in Manchester City Centre and we also have a clear flexible working policy in our employee handbook.
Engagement & Voice
We have weekly and monthly team meetings, and every team member has a regular PDP which is an open forum for business or personal / family matters. We actively seek feedback from our team members and always strive to operate within an environment where everyone’s voice is heard and all opinions matter.
People Management
DATS has a clear set of values that runs through everything we do - we are sociable, authentic, collaborative, bold and experts who continue to learn! We also have an engaging induction programme to get our new starters up to speed and feeling confident in no time. On an ongoing basis we have regular development days and additional training as required.
We are really looking forward to continuing to work with the charter over the coming months and working to achieve full member status by the end of the year.
