Supporting People Success is our core mission. For many of our consultants, the main draw of working in recruitment is helping people every day. This allows our purpose to not only live within our offices but also permeate the world around us.
We know that there is and always will be more to do when it comes to our responsibility as a corporation. As we grow as a values-led business, we will continue to give back to the community, ensure that we go above and beyond our responsibility as a business, and address wider issues for our industry through our affiliation with the Association of Professional Staffing Companies (APSCo).
Simplicity | Integrity | Mastery | Persistence | Leadership | Empowered | Fun | Collaboration
Keeping true to our value of Integrity, we believe that transparency is key to be the industry leader we aspire to be. Through tracking and reporting our successes and failures in the charity work we do, and diversity & inclusion, wellbeing & health and environmental initiatives, we will remain accountable to our employees, clients, candidates, and stakeholders.
Foreword
To start off the Financial Year, our offices are taking part in Plastic-Free July, where participating employees are forgoing single-use plastics for the month.
Within the first two days, our employees were pointing out how pervasive plastic is. It seemed like an insurmountable challenge — going about your everyday life, without buying or using single-use plastics.
One person even asked, “What happens if I accidentally
use single-use plastic, if I sign up for the challenge?”
On an individual level, nothing really. There’s no punishment for using a piece of single-use plastic, but you’ll become more aware of it.
As Zero Waste Chef Anne-Marie Bonneau says, “We don’t need a handful of people doing [it] perfectly. We need millions of people doing it imperfectly.”
That’s why we’ve made a decision as a business to start tracking and reporting on how we’re impacting our wider community on an environmental and social level.
We’re incredibly fortunate to have employees that are passionate about a number of causes. They make upholding our values of Integrity, Leadership and Empowered easy, and we’re proud to have them take the initiative with how they want our business to lead the way.
We developed our Corporate Social Responsibility as part of our commitment to our consultants to ensure that the causes they are passionate about are not fleeting but are ingrained in our everyday business.
It’s also a promise to every single person to interacts with Sirius People that we will continue to not only deliver an outstanding experience on a service level but are also committed to affecting change in our wider community.
We hope that this CSR will showcase what our company is passionate about and will inspire your company to start or continue making environmental and societal changes within your business and the wider community.
Table of content
APSCo
CHARITY
SPONSORSHIP
DIVERSITY & INCLUSION
WELLBEING & HEALTH
ENVIRONMENT
APSCo
As part of our dedication to extending our social responsibility outside of our office walls, we have partnered with the Association of Professional Staffing Companies (APSCo) to ensure that we are providing the highest level of ethical service to all our clients and candidates.
APSCo is the only membership body dedicated to professional recruitment and offers risk and compliance checks to all its members on an annual basis.
Our CEO, Stephen Smith, is Chair on the APSCo Board of Directors and ensures that Sirius People is aware of any governmental regulations that could impact our business — and yours.
We are working toward APSCo-certification across our entire business — from a business level down to an individual recruitment consultant level. Our management team has recently undergone certification. We will be rolling out certifications to our recruitment consultants this year so that all our Sirius consultants will be APSCo-certified by the end of FY2019-20.
Charity
Since Sirius People began in 2003, giving back to the community has played a huge role in who we are as a company.
Every year, we participate and donate to a number of charitable organisations in Australia. Some causes we’ve supported recently include Plastic-Free July, Hands Across The Water, MS Gong Ride, Fiver For A Farmer, OzChild, Darkness Into Light (Pieta House), and Australia’s Biggest Morning Tea (Cancer Council).
The Sirius offices rugged up in their best farmer gear and brought in “A Fiver For A Farmer” to farmers facing record dry conditions. We also participated in Sober October, with all expenses that would have been spent on the office beer fridge going to Australian farmers.
In November 2018, some of our Sydney tribe biked 82 km to raise funds for people living with multiple sclerosis through The MS Gong Ride. Last year, we raised over $2,350 for the cause.
For our 16-year anniversary, Sirius People ran in the Sydney Morning Herald Half Marathon for our long-term charitable partner Hands Across The Water.
Hands Across The Water was originally formed in response to the countless Thai children who were left homeless and alone by the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami.
We had raised over $5,000 for the organisation previously when we joined the charity’s annual Ride To Provide cycling challenge.
We also encourage our team to let us know about any causes that they’re passionate about.
Thanks to a survey run by our Siriusly Charitable Tribe, our consultants voted
to primarily participate and donate to charities with a focus on:
» Mental health,
» Homelessness and vulnerable children,
» The environment,
» Domestic violence, and
» Cancer.
Sponsorship
We’re proud to announce an official partnership with the Seaforth Football Club, one of the largest football clubs on the Northern Beaches of Sydney.
Growing up, our founder Steve Smith played football and knows firsthand how a team environment supports the local community and development of the next generation, as we are to support ALL people’s success.
We are sponsoring the club’s flagship teams: The Men’s Premier League, Women’s All Age teams, and the U6 team, and will be donating an additional $1,000 to Seaforth FC for every new customer created through our referral scheme.
If you’re part of the Seaforth team, please reach out to learn more about our referral program!
We also have sponsored L2R Dance, part of the Destructive Steps Dance Troupe, Australia’s largest street dance festival.
L2R is a not-for-profit organisation that provides opportunities to culturally and linguistically diverse, newly arrived, and/or at-risk young people to join a free, weekly hip hop workshop in Melbourne’s West.
In 2018, we flew the dance troupe to Sydney for the festival, where the best street dancers around the world unite to battle it out on the dance floor.
The troupe also showed the Sydney office their best popping, locking and break-dancing moves. And did their best to teach our tribe how to ‘cut some shapes.’
We are looking forward to sponsoring them again in 2019.!
To learn more about L2R dance, please visit their website: l2r.org.au
Diversity & Inclusion
As individuals and as a company, we value diversity and equal opportunity. Our team comes from diverse ethnic and cultural backgrounds, ages, abilities and a balanced gender ratio (including in our senior management). We believe this is important to communicate and reflect the equally diverse range of clients and candidates we support. We also report in an annual basis the WGEA Report https://www.wgea.gov.au/reporting.
This year we celebrated Harmony Day across all our offices by dressing in orange and encouraging our staff to bring a plate from their nationality to share.
We are proud to have a diverse team across all our offices. From our own backyard to Asia, Europe, and North America, we deeply understand the value of having a team from various cultural backgrounds.
What this means for our clients and candidates is that our consultants put forward the best candidate for the role, based on their interview and the inherent requirements of the role. We also actively train our consultants to be aware of hiring biases, and provide advice to our clients in this area, as the necessity arises.
Wellbeing &Health
Personal and work-related problems can impact our well-being and our ability to function to our full potential.
As part of our promise to support people’s success, we have partnered with Optum to provide the Employee Assistance Program (EAP).
The service provides confidential counselling, coaching and consulting on a range of personal and work-related issues, and is available to all employees (including contractors) and their immediate family members at no cost to the employee.
They also sent monthly newsletters covering a variety of topics regarding life, family and relationships; health and wellbeing; and education, work, and career.
Sirius Energy
We also have a fitness group that’s available to all our employees, called Sirius Energy. Any employee can lead the group, and the group can determine what time they want to assemble and what work out they’d like to do.
Most recently, Sirius Energy has been focusing on training for upcoming charity initiatives to encourage all our employees to become involved — not only the ones who regularly participate.
For instance, Sydney’s Sirius Energy had been focusing on running in the lead up to the Sydney Morning Herald half marathon to raise funds for Hands Across The Water. Every Tuesday morning, the group would meet to run between 5 to 10 km, do stairs, box or do a body-weight circuit.
Brisbane’s Sirius Energy has also been doing lunchtime circuit training. They’ve also extended the sessions to clients, who are welcome to join.
Finally, to encourage a healthy lifestyle amongst our own employees, we also have a fruit basket that’s refilled weekly in each of our offices.
Environment
We will also be tracking and reporting the amount of paper purchased and electricity used in each office over the course of the next financial year to ensure we are actively reducing our environmental footprint.
Each of our offices is located close to public transport to encourage staff, clients, and candidates to minimise their carbon impact when coming to and from our offices.
Plastic-Free July
“By 2050, there will be more plastic on the ocean than fish”
— Ellen MacArthur –
In July 2019, employees from each of our offices took part in Plastic Free July, where participants refused single-use plastic for the month.
The previous Plastic-Free July had over 120 million participants in 177 countries, saving 490 million kilograms of plastic waste from going to landfill in 2018.
To show our support for the movement, participating employees used keep cups for their daily coffees, took their own containers and cutlery to grab lunch, avoided plastic packaging at the supermarket, used reusable water bottles, and asked for no straws.
Here’s what our team had to say after participating in Plastic-Free July:
What part of Plastic-Free July did you find most difficult?
“Being a lover of the ocean, I can't help but notice the amount of plastic floating around and how it’s impacting marine life. Going single-use plastic-free for a whole month really made me realise how EVERYTHING uses plastic and how it’s sometimes impossible to avoid. It’s really opened my eyes and I shall certainly be continuing to #ReduceMyUse moving forward.”
— Peter Wyld, Senior Sirius Technology Recruitment Consultant —
What's something you'll continue doing after Plastic-Free July?
“Reusable cup and re-use all plastic products. Try to not buy products wrapped in plastic.”
— Sandee McMillian, Divisional Manager Sirius Support —
What part of Plastic-Free July did you find most difficult?
“Everything is made of plastic! But with some “nudges” from the team, we were able to be conscious of our usage and it became easier.”
— Brian Maan, QLD State Manager Sirius Technology —
Why did you choose to take part in Plastic-Free July?
“I’ve been interested in the zero-waste movement since 2015. One of the first things I began minimising was my plastic consumption. So, when I first heard of Plastic-Free July last year, I was keen to take it that step further and eliminate those last plastic bits from my current consumption. I won't lie — I became a bit lax about it over the course of the year, so it's been fun recommitting to the plastic-free life again this year.”
— Deni Verklan, Sirius People Copywriter —
What's something you'll continue doing after Plastic-Free July?
“I will continue to say no to straws when I order a beverage and use my shopping bags when I go to the shops. (I now always leave one in my bag, just in case!)”
— Gemma Hunter, Sirius People Office & Culture Coordinator —
What's something you'll continue doing after Plastic-Free July?
“I'll be continuing to use my keep cup for my morning coffee and bring a reusable bag each time I go shopping. On top of this, I will commit to only buying plastic-free toothbrushes, as well as bars of soap, rather than shower gel in plastic bottles.“
— Jack Byrne, Senior Sirius Technology Recruitment Consultant —
Why did you choose to take part in Plastic-Free July?
“I took part in Plastic Free July quite simply because it is the right thing to do. Plastic is a man-made product that is endangering the planet and all living things, so we need to do as much as possible as individuals to reduce our waste.”
— Sam Butler, Sirius People National People & Operations Manager —
Why did you choose to take part in Plastic-Free July?
“I chose to take part in Plastic-Free July because I care about the planet and more people need to make conscious decisions on a daily basis to help! Even if it is something small.”
— Ashley Colston, Sirius Support Recruitment Consultant —
What's something you'll continue doing after Plastic-Free July?
“When I travel I'll take my keep cup, water bottle and a Tupperware container with cutlery not just when I'm at work.”
