Team building's our Bread and Butter
First Central’s people are a truly exceptional bunch wherever they are and we look after them inside and outside the company. We put people first, always, and make sure we nurture the communities we’re a part of so we can all thrive together. These relationships are super important to us.
Supporting charitable causes has been a big part of our CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) agenda since we were established in 2008. Up until earlier this year we asked colleagues in each of our four office locations to nominate their chosen charity for the following two years and First Central committed to match funding pound for pound all the money our colleagues worked hard to raise. That’s right, First Central doubled whatever its people collected! Last year, this approach meant we blew our fundraising and volunteering targets out of the water by generating £67,456 funds for our charities and spending an impressive 2,434 hours on volunteering activities. Not bad, eh?
The targets we promised to achieve earlier this year though were bigger, bolder and more backbreaking. We can’t believe September’s over already! The autumn leaves have started to turn beautiful shades of russet, ochre and peach and we’re taking an opportunity to pause and think about the changes we made.
Although we developed successful, strong connections with the four charities our people appointed, colleague locations have shifted significantly post-Covid. Flexible working means many of us have moved away from our cities; around 10% of us now working fully remotely. We’re absolutely represented in all four ‘corners’ of the UK…
This is why we decided to concentrate our support on a single UK-based charity. We asked and our colleagues enthusiastically responded; with our passionate focus on colleagues’ mental, physical and spiritual wellbeing, it was no surprise the resounding winner was Young Minds, the UK’s leading charity fighting for a world where no young person feels alone with their mental health. Young Minds knows there’s no one-size-fits-all approach to mental health and it works hard to give hundreds of thousands of young black, marginalised and minoritised people hope. No one should have to reach crisis point.
We’re all pulling together to make sure we raise as much as we can for this amazing cause. Watch this space; we’ll keep you in the loop and let you know how we’re faring towards the year end.
In the meantime, we want to share a recent success story that ticked all the boxes from a volunteering point of view and shone a spotlight on the values at the heart of First Central’s culture, particularly collaboration and ownership. We’ve developed strong bonds with many of the UK’s community groups and love nothing more than helping whenever we can. At the same time, we know how important it is that we give our colleagues regular opportunities to spend time with the peers they might not otherwise see for significant periods because of flexible working patterns. So, bringing 20 colleagues together in Manchester for a team away day involving volunteering with a local charity achieved multiple objectives.
The Bread and Butter Thing’s mobile food clubs give communities access to nutritious and affordable food they wouldn’t otherwise be able to afford. The low-cost weekly shop provides essential produce for family eating: fresh fruit and veg, fridge favourites and cupboard staples. First Central’s support for the fantastic work they do at their Trafford Park Hub meant 1,000 members and their families got the benefit of healthier foodstuffs, that’s about 3,000 – 4,000 people putting meals on the table. Impressive for a day's work.
