Awards are important to Southdown because, as well as highlighting our work, they help us to attract a high calibre of staff and reassure commissioners, service users and staff that our work has been externally validated.
Top Employers for Working Familis
In 2011 Southdown beat off competition from a long list of well known UK companies and organisations into the top ten of Top Employers for Working Families. Hosted by the charity, Working Families, Southdown were ranked alongside companies that included American Express, Accenture, Barclays and KPMG and outshone the likes of Dell, Delloite and the Ministry of Justice. HR Services Manager, Janet Casserley said:
“None of what we do to support working parents and carers at Southdown is rocket-science and much of it is common sense. We try hard to support our staff, especially so given that we are asking them to work smarter and harder than ever before. We can’t afford to provide crèches or help with child care (although we do we do offer childcare vouchers to help towards the cost), but what we can do is provide a culture of trust, respect and flexibility for all our staff. No-one at Southdown needs to explain about the importance of attending their child’s nativity play or leaving on time to pick them up or leaving swiftly when an elderly parent has fallen. Family life has changing patterns and ups and downs and working parents need to be able to juggle, but we can support them as best we can whilst still providing excellent services to our clients.”
If you would like to know more about how Southdown can support working parents or carers, please contact the HR department.
Institute of Directors
Aideen Jones, the CEO of Southdown won the award for Director of the Year (2008/09) for not-for-profit sector.
The Sunday Times
Southdown was ranked in the Top 100 for three years running. We were ranked the number one company in the UK for being run on sound moral principles, the second best for having strong values, fifth for making a difference to the world, seventh for putting something back into the community and ninth for being ‘green’. We were awarded three star 'exceptional' Best Companies accreditation in a scheme, set up alongside the top 100 Sunday Times list, to acknowledge corporate excellence in the workplace.
(We decided not to enter the competition for the past two years and chose instead to benchmark ourselves against new standards).
British Safety Council
Southdown has won several International Safety Awards including the Award for 2010, in recognition of the commitment to risk management and excellent safety record of the Association.
National care sector training accolades
Awarded ‘best employer promoting continued professional development’.
Investors in People
Repeated accreditation with glowing reports.
Stonewall
We are an Employer Champion with Stonewall, the campaigning organisation for lesbian and gay rights.
Mindful Employer
We work to the national standards for promoting equality for people who have had mental health problems and challenging prejudice in employment.
Tommy Award
We are committed to national standards for supporting the health and welfare of our staff who are expectant parents.
Positive about Disability
We are regularly reaccredited with achieving the national standard for proactive and positive support to disabled people who wish to work for us.
