Defining the INSTOCK Group

Our Vision

Helping customers transform the catering and accommodation experiences of everyone in the UK to help create great and memorable events.

Our Mission

To create an organisation that has a deep client-oriented culture, strong values and a common purpose.

We aim to provide flexible and innovative services and to consider the consequences of our commercial activities.

By focusing on client service, encouraging positive behaviours and implementing ethical operations, we want our staff to feel proud of what we do.

Our Culture

A thorough but flexible approach to our work.

We recognise that communication and teamwork are vital to our group learning, to improve our service and increase our ability to create innovative solutions.

We have a passion to serve our customers together with pride in our values and we want to have fun doing it.

Values

The values we adhere to will define our corporate DNA.

It is more than a list of words.

These are the traits and behaviours we insist upon when recruiting and appointing our staff.

Our management teams are expected to commit to and demonstrate these values in their role and to cultivate these values in our staff.

• Honesty - Fundamental in all dealings
• Integrity - Reliability, decency, fairness, meeting commitments
• Professionalism - Raising our standards compared to our competition, look for excellent rather than good
• Commitment to customers - Core to success
• Accountability - Taking ownership, giving all we have to the task, the role, the mission
• Respect - Colleagues, Suppliers, Customers
• Consideration - Human and environmental impact of our decisions and activities

Fair Work Practices

We are commited to supporting our staff, provide meaningful employment and embedding Fair Work Practices within our business and supply chain.

Fair Pay

We are an accredited Living Wage employer.  We vet all suppliers and conduct annual audits encouraging them to pay the real living wage.

Effective Voice

We maintain an Open Door Policy and culture of honesty and transparency set out in our Health/Wellbeing Policy, which empowers staff and promotes engagement/discussion of work/non-work-related issues. Our omnichannel approach includes:

• Staff appraisals (monthly) with line-manager to discuss queries/ideas/development opportunities
• Support progressive workforce engagement through Employee Forums
• Annual third-party staff feedback surveys
• Anonymous feedback boxes
• 'Meet the Shareholders Evenings' to engage/ask questions
• Trade Union Engagement
• Mental Health help lines/Mental Health First Aiders (currently 6 employees) provide a channel for concerns, a listening ear and advice/support

Workforce Development

To achieve a quality service for our customers, we invest heavily in each employee’s development to obtain commitment, effective decision-making, and efficiency. This is evidenced by our annual staff retention-rate of c95% and average length of service: 

• Sales 6-years
• Customer Services 15-years
• Warehouse 13-years
• Admin 40+years

To ensure continuous improvement we have a Training and Compliance Manager who is responsible for guiding our annual training.  Our Training Matrix is monitored regularly and staff are provided training and development opportunities relevant to their roles and aspirations (informed by our appraisals).  Our employees receive ROSPA Accredited module training and we have staff trained for SMSTS, SSSTS and CITB as well as Mental Health and First Aid trained staff.  We financially support time-off to encourage all staff who wish to attend further education and continue to support apprenticeships and skills training programmes in our local areas.

No Zero-Hour Contracts

To prevent exploitative employment practices, we have No Zero-Hours Contracts Policy. We vet/audit our suppliers ensuring they comply as part of our Ethical Purchasing/Modern Slavery Policy.

Creating a diverse and inclusive workplace

Currently within our organisation there is zero gender pay gap.  To ensure this continues we will monitor/report on the diversity of our workforce throughout each year. Our annually reviewed/circulated Equality & Diversity Policy ensures we:

• Harness the individual talents of staff from different backgrounds and skill-sets
• Promote mutual understanding of people’s differences
• Provide free language courses
• Offer work placements to pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds

We will continue to recruit a diverse pool of employees with a focus on seeking to recruit more women, people with disabilities and young people from disadvantaged backgrounds. We have reviewed our recruitment process to ensure inclusive recruitment and that diversity is positively promoted in our job advertisements. For example, we guarantee disabled applicants who meet minimum role-criteria will be taken to the next stage.
All our facilities have been adapted to support diversity/inclusion:

• Disability ramps in all depots
• Gender neutral toilets
• Assigning a Diversity Representative within our Employee Forum to provide an active voice for all employees

Flexible working

We provide flexible working arrangements to support our employees work-life balance, family arrangements and personal circumstance. We encourage employees to request options including:

• Flexi-time
• Staggered hours
• Compressed hours
• Part-time working
• Working from home
• Career breaks

Opposing fire/rehire practices

We never use fire/rehire practices within our company and audit our suppliers annually to ensure they also comply.

To ensure we maintain a high performance/healthy workforce we will report on our fair work progress, regularly updating councils on new measures implemented to support effective voice, new commitments to investment in our workforce, workplace diversity statistics, examples of flexible work practices and evidence of no use of exploitative work practices or pay below the living wage.