A year of successes for
Norse CSR strategy

It has been an active year for Norse in the area of Corporate Social Responsibility, with significant contribution in all three strands of the CSR strategy:

Placement programmes have been primarily with vulnerable clients via Business in the Community, Meridian East and The Shaw Trust.

There are 4 programmes per year under the BITC scheme and Norse takes between three and five clients on each programme. In the past 12 months the company has offered 16 placements across a range of service areas, one of which has been turned into permanent employment.

Through the Talent Together programme with Meridian East 21 clients have been taken, mainly in the catering arena, with three becoming employed.

Norse’s partnership with the Shaw Trust has been the most successful arrangement this year, converting 27 guaranteed interviews into 16 permanent jobs: an excellent result amongst a client group who are the long term unemployed, some of whom face multiple barriers to work.

In all Norse have offered 64 placements in the year, and have provided employment for 20 of these people.

As part of the company’s Community Funding, in the last 12 months, Norse made a contribution to a total of 28 projects, with grants typically in the region of £500 a time. There is a high degree of staff satisfaction when these grants are awarded, and it is part of the Norse CSR ethos to encourage staff to apply for funds, and to include it as a measure on staff satisfaction surveys.

With the enthusiasm of personnel at all levels, there is probably a lot more ‘probone’ activity than is recorded centrally. The company has supported the Benjamin Foundation, The King of Hearts and Norfolk Family Mediation Service, providing in total around 27days support to these organisations, with a value of £4050 Using based on BITC’s recommended charge out rate of £150 per day.