Corporate Social Responsibility

We believe we have a responsibility to grow our business, to maximise opportunities for innovation and development that benefit all our employees. That responsibility also carries a duty of care to our employees, clients and the wider community in which we operate.

As a socially responsible group, Oxinia is committed to ensuring that we consider the best interests of all our clients, candidates, employees and the community. To this end, we aim to operate honestly, fairly and with integrity, respecting the people with whom we do business, caring for our employees and local communities and showing consideration for the environment.

The insights we bring, the advice we impart and the solutions we provide can have a significant impact on the businesses, careers and lives of others. We demonstrate this commitment by providing pro bono advice and support for organisations within the charity sector, both in terms of hosting meetings for them within our offices. During 2008, examples of charities we have advised on a pro bono basis include Dimbleby Cancer Care, IDPE, the Churches Conservation Trust and the Rural Housing Trust.

We recognise these responsibilities and take them seriously. We adhere to a code of professional ethics with an emphasis on honesty and integrity — handling our relationships with clients, candidates and colleagues with great care.

The Oxinia Corporate Social Responsibility policy provides a framework for our approach to the following areas:

Client Values

Honesty, integrity, quality and professionalism are the foundation stones of our business. We develop long term relationships and our culture of team working, collaboration and open knowledge-sharing is unusual within our industry. We take the long-term view, and above all, are concerned we put the right people into the right organisations. We would never persuade an individual to join a firm where we considered there to be a poor fit between personalities and culture since it neither makes sense reputationally or commercially.

Colleague Values

Our teams embrace and live by our client values of Honesty and Integrity, Professionalism, Quality and Creativity and Innovation. Our people are recruited and developed with a strong focus on our colleague values of:

• Collaboration and Respect for Others
• Ownership and Drive for Results
• Delivering Excellent Work
• Embracing Change and Diversity

The Environment

Within the Oxinia Group of which we are a part, we acknowledge the realities of Climate Change and support efforts to reduce our environmental impact in line with current UK Government targets to reduce emissions year on year by 80% by 2050.

Due to the nature of business operations within the group, Oxinia has a relatively low impact on the environment; however, we recognise the need to minimise the impact as far as possible. We have taken and are in the process of implementing a number of measures to identify how best to reduce our emissions and to take direct action to do so. Key elements and specific actions taken include:

• Working with our group company w5ive, an environmental and ground transportation business which advises corporate and not-for-profit on ways of reducing emissions and minimising environmental impact
• The appointment of former Environment Minister and Environmental Audit Committee Chairman Tim Yeo to our Group Advisory Board to advise on environmental issues
• Ensuring that the environmental impact of travel – whether for internal or external meetings – produces the lowest possible emissions. In the event that public transport is not feasible, we ensure that hybrid cars are used through our account with Green Tomato Cars.

The Community

At Oxinia we believe that sponsorship and community involvement are both intrinsically important and a crucial aspect of our ongoing development and reputation of the brand. Consequently, we will actively encourage employees to play a wider role in the local community and wider society and always seek, where necessary, to accommodate requests to undertake such activities within normal working hours.

Oxinia has always supported charitable work through regular donations, and in particular through our ongoing partnership with Dimbleby Cancer Care, for which we have raised over £10,000 through our partnership during 2008, in addition to hosting trustee meetings and supporting their development. Oxinia has also been a corporate supporter of the Year of Food and Farming and raised money for the Royal British Legion.

We are currently reviewing charities with which to partner during 2009 and anticipate reaching a decision by December 2008, which is made annually at a meeting of all staff, chaired by our designated CSR Head, Edward Wild.

We also support the voluntary charitable activities our employees through sponsorship and providing opportunities to take part in such activities. We are always looking for new ways to get involved with the local community and welcome suggestions and ideas from our employees.

Our staff have individually supported a range of causes on a one-off or ongoing basis. Examples include:

• Ormond Street Hospital,
• Marie Curie Trust and Cancer Care
• Army Benevolent Fund
• RNLI

We seek to ensure that our Environmental, Equal Opportunities, Disability and Health and Safety policies are at the forefront of best practice in our sector and are constantly striving to achieve that objective through proactive research and provision of conference funding.