Action 1
Office-based working will be reduced to essential attendance only.
Our investment in cloud-based solutions has seen all of our admin and communication functions moved to virtualised and platform-independent systems. Our teams can effectively work from anywhere at any time.
Guidance suggests that some may be carriers without displaying symptoms. Although none of our team are currently symptomatic nor have been recently exposed to high-risk sources, ‘social distancing’ will reduce the potential for inter-personnel transmissions to a minimum.
Action 2
Personnel quarantine will be imposed where applicable.
All our company activities are allocated with primary and reserve responsibility, ensuring cover in absence or incapacity.
Any member of our team who becomes symptomatic or is suspected or found to be a carrier or infected, or is known to have been exposed to someone who is a carrier or infected, will be isolated to reduce the potential for inter-personnel transmissions to a minimum.
Action 3
Enhanced personal hygiene will be adopted by our team
Regular hand and face washing plus adherence to local customer protocols will be ensured.
We will not be mandating the use of facemasks, because guidance suggests that this is of negligible benefit. However, adopting advice on mitigation and a common-sense approach to general hygiene, will reduce the potential for inter-personal transmissions to a minimum
Action 4
On-site attendance to customer service and response activities will be reduced to essential actions only and only where expressly authorised by our customers.
Our ability to support users and equipment remotely, allows us to resolve a large proportion of reactive service requests in a timely and effective manner, without a physical presence. Non-essential can be rescheduled to a mutually agreed future date, mindful of any foreseeable detriment to equipment performance
Whilst regular proactive maintenance is important, responsibility for safeguarding our customers and our own team members is paramount. Reducing on-site attendance will proportionally reduce the potential for inter-personnel transmissions.
We recognise that the health and safety of employees, and others who may be affected by our operations, is of primary importance in the successful conduct of our business.
It is our policy that:
The following statements of principles and intentions comprise the Waste Management and Environmental Policy of W. V. Howe Ltd, which applies to all activities.
Principles:
Intentions
We comply with the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 (as amended by the Sex Discrimination Act 1986), Race Relations Act 1976 as amended by the Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000, The Race Relations Act (Amendment) Regulations 2003, The Race Relations Code of Practice for the elimination of racial discrimination and the promotion of equality of opportunity in employment, as approved by Parliament in 1983, The Disability Discrimination Act 1995 and the Equal Pay Act 1970, Employment Equality (Religion or Belief) (Amendment) Regulations 2003, The Equal Pay Act 1970 (Amendment) Regulations 2003, Employment Equality (Sexual Orientation) Regulations 2003.
It is our policy as an equal opportunities employer to comply with our statutory obligations under the above Acts and, accordingly, our practice is not to treat one group of people less favourably than others because of their sex, colour, creed, race, nationality, ethnic origin, marital status or disability when deciding to recruit, train or promote employees. We advertise all employment opportunities whether through local press advertisements and/or via local job centres to try to ensure that our workforce is diverse and representative of the local community and monitor the responses to ensure that we are reaching all sections of the community. We ensure that staff are treated equitably in all areas of employment including career development, pay, training and promotion. All staff are required to ensure fairness towards colleagues, customers and members of the public in carrying out their duties. All employees should help to promote the Policy in the workplace in all aspects of service delivery and to work towards the elimination of discrimination. All staff have a duty to report any instances of discrimination to their manager at the earliest opportunity so that appropriate action can be taken to remedy the situation. Any instances of victimisation, harassment or discrimination of any kind would be dealt with by disciplinary action.
Overall responsibility for overseeing implementation of this Policy and monitoring it’s progress is with the company’s Sales Director; John Hill.
Regular reviews of the Policy will take place and to ensure that it is consistent with current legislation and codes of practice. Amendments will be made as and when required.
This Policy is made freely available to all members of staff.
Please contact us for a copy of the above policy
This statement is made pursuant to section 54(1) of the Modern Slavery Act 2015 (the “Act”) for the financial year ending 31 May 2019.
Established in Birmingham over 65 years ago, we are a national business supplying a wide range of catering equipment across the UK.
Modern Slavery in all forms, whether slavery, servitude, forced or compulsory labour, or human trafficking (collectively, “Slavery”), is a crime and a fundamental violation of human rights. As a company we remain absolutely committed to ensuring that there is no form of Slavery in our business and supply chain. We share this ethos with our suppliers and business partners and we are dedicated to sustaining open and transparent relationships with them to ensure that the highest ethical standards are maintained regardless of where they are located.
The prevention, detection and reporting of human rights violations in any part of our business or supply chain is the responsibility of all those working for W.V. Howe Limited and we expect our Directors and Employees to maintain the utmost standards in conformity with these principles.
We source products from across the globe and recognise that this may involve sensitive countries and industries. Our suppliers play a critical role in our business, and our relationships with them are based on achieving the best performance, product delivery times, service and total cost in an ethical and sustainable manner. We undertake a mapping exercise of our supply chains by collecting information about our tier 1 suppliers. We should then seek to collect information on lower tiers to help understand where risks may be greater.
As a minimum, we expect our suppliers to comply with the following requirements:
For any supplier who is found to be noncompliant with our policies, we will terminate our relationship unless conditions are immediately improved and compliance is restored.
W.V. Howe Limited is committed to training its employees on an ongoing basis. We provide training and guidance on what Slavery is, what preventative measures must be implemented and what steps should be taken in the event that any concerns are identified in our supply chain.
W.V. Howe Limited’s expectation and aim is to not tolerate any business that does not respect basic human rights.
Signed
John Hill
Director
30 December 2021