Statement of Intent – Health and Safety
We believe that all employees have a right to work in a safe and healthy environment and we intend to carry out our business without putting employees, or others, health or physical wellbeing at risk.
The directors recognise their commitment and responsibility to ensure adequate health and safety provision for all staff, customers and contractors.
The central idea of Howdens is that it should be worthwhile for all concerned. Putting this into practice – wanting others to do well, not just ourselves – is what sets Howdens apart, and what will guarantee its future.
Fundamental to this idea is that we keep our employees safe at work. We have around 12,000 employees in the UK and Europe (and counting) and we need to keep them all safe. There should be no compromise on health and safety.
Our two operational divisions and central functions, whilst different operationally and in their deployment methodologies, share the same intent and purpose:
- To provide a safe and healthy working environment
- To prevent workplace accidents and reduce the risk of potential long-term health effects
- Where incidents occur, to learn from those instances by improving awareness and processes
- To ensure performance metrics and near miss reporting are continually reviewed to identify risk and improvement opportunities
- To make our safety messages engaging and accessible
- To foster a positive Health and Safety culture amongst our workforce by ensuring engagement and positive challenge
- We will continue to share best demonstrated practice across the divisions. This will ensure performance improvements beyond compliance to legislation, codes and standards and will complement the cultural variances across the Group. Each division should also engage external partners and undertake appropriate benchmarking to ensure that there are no skills or knowledge gaps.
We have made good progress on health and safety to date but the next step of our journey is to strengthen the effectiveness of our existing processes with increased emphasis on a safety culture.
Statement of Intent – Sustainability and Corporate Social Responsibility
We intend to match our commitment to growth and development with a continued focus on being a responsible company. We are committed to ensuring that our business remains worthwhile for all concerned.
We are mindful of Howdens’ responsibilities concerning energy use, waste reduction, ethical and sustainable sourcing of materials, and support and enrichment of the local communities in which we operate, even in the face of increasing demands on our resources.
With over 800 depots throughout the UK, we are a local business with national scale and therefore have unique responsibilities to all of the communities in which we operate.
Our business model encourages sustainable behaviour. It is part of our competitive advantage. Lowest cost production in our factories leads naturally to trying to minimise waste and the use of energy and raw materials. Our stated aim of “no-call-back quality” means that we produce and source product which is durable and safe.
Being trusted partners to both our suppliers and our customers means that our relationships with them need to work for all parties over the long term. Our relationship model means being a good employer and a good neighbour in all of the communities in which we operate. Regardless of what part of the business they operate, we expect all our employees to share the same intent and purpose:
- To reduce our impact on our environment wherever possible by reducing energy use and waste production relative to revenue
- Where we source products from third parties, to ensure that we undertake due diligence to ensure that they conduct their business in an ethical way
- To ensure that we minimise as far as possible the risk of Modern Slavery in either our own business or those in our supply chain
- To support and encourage our staff to help local charities and community organisations
- To offer rewarding careers and create an environment to attract, develop, motivate and reward employees of high calibre
- To support the training of apprentices where this is appropriate in the business
We will continue to focus on the main areas of importance to us and to our stakeholders.
HOWDENS Making space more valuable
Business Model and Strategy
Depots
Sustainability
Community
Products
People and Careers
Financial Results
