From Silicon Roundabout in London to Manchester's Northern Quarter, the UK remains Europe's leading tech hub for both investment and innovation.
What's more, the penetration of digital technologies in UK enterprise is at an all-time high thanks to a combination of forward-looking industrial strategy.
So, it's easy to see why Workspace365 has set up shop in Britain. Following on from our success in the Netherlands and United States, we've launched an entirely new team in Manchester with the sole mission of making UK tech and enterprises more accessible and more productive.
But at the core of any successful company are its people. We want Workspace 365 to not only offer fulfilling employment, but rewarding, challenging, and fun learning experiences every single day.
That's why we've signed up to two schemes that will help us get there: the Tech Talent Charter and the Greater Manchester Good Employment Charter.
We've decided to be as open as possible about our values, and publicly commit to achieving the best and most inclusive employee experience that we can. We want under-represented groups to feel at home in an environment where they can thrive.
We want parents, carers, older workers, those with a disability and every cultural group to share their perspective and ideas, and contribute to and share in our success.
Tech Talent Charter
The Tech Talent Charter is more than just a nice logo to add to our website.
Founded by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport in partnership with the likes of pwc, techUK and HP, this charter was founded to solve the issue of inclusion and diversity in tech across the UK.
Despite improvements over the last few years, the UK tech sector continues to face inclusion challenges, particularly over the role of women and ethnic minorities in the industry.
Of the three million people employed by the UK tech industry, only an estimated 26% of those are women. Meanwhile, only 3% of the sector's workforce come from BAME backgrounds. The scale of the challenge is therefore huge.
Becoming a Signatory of the Tech Talent Charter makes us part of a network that puts inclusion first and gives us a clear roadmap for becoming a model employer.
With a network comprising companies and organisations of all sizes and across many sectors, we're able to tap into best practices and knowledge sharing that will boost our innovation efforts.
To become a Signatory we have committed to the following standards:
- We elect a representative to act as Senior Signatory with overall responsibility for ensuring that Workspace 365 achieves its charter commitments.
- We develop an internal plan to improve inclusion. This supports us as we recruit, develop and retain a diverse workforce.
- We commit to collaborating with other Signatory organisations and the TTC to share our best practice, and also the interventions that haven't worked as well.
- In September every year, we submit our aggregated diversity data for inclusion in TTC's annual Diversity in Tech benchmarking report.
We also get a lot in return. TTC's events, toolkits and hackathons don't just tell us what we need to know to solve problems and innovate, they bring Signatories together to produce practical answers and tangible ways forward for the tech sector as it seeks to recruit more diverse talent..
What's more TTC's benchmarking data has given us the insights we need to understand exactly how far we have come, and how much further we need to go. They have provided us with a range of indicators across our industry in relation to inclusion and diversity which we hope will ensure our place as one of the UK's best new employers in tech.
The Greater Manchester Good Employment Charter
Delivering meaningful D&I means working not just across the sector nationally, but regionally.
Greater Manchester is already one of the UK's top tech hubs, with MediaCityUK in Salford now housing the likes of the BBC and the Northern Quarter giving rise to dozens of top startups.
That's why the Good Employment Charter was founded to help build on the region's strengths. This charter is more than a pledge to sign, but a movement. It brings together more than 850 employers who want to ensure that local residents have access to fairly-compensated, quality work with employers that are fully committed to their health and wellbeing.
There are seven areas that the Charter aims to lead improvement in across its member organisations:
- Secure work and income stability
- Flexible working
- Pay
- Workforce engagement and employee voice
- Diversity and inclusion
- Management excellence
- Health and wellbeing
We're excited to support the local region in its quest to become a leading employment hub and one of the first to openly call for better employment practices. We're in a challenging time for recruitment and retention, and know that how we treat our staff is inextricably linked to our future success. Improving our employment proposition will enable us to access untapped talent pools that can contribute to our growth.
Both charters also give us the opportunity to connect with other tech employers, discussing best practices and brainstorm ideas that will move the sector forward. We hope to make a positive contribution to the Manchester and UK tech sector by truly listening, recognising our weaknesses and taking action to make tech more accessible to a wider range of workers, which will make our work more relevant and impactful.
Keeping the conversation going
Inclusion, flexible working, and wellbeing are of course vital to being part of our team, but they mean nothing without fair compensation. On top of joining the two charters we've outlined above, Workspace365 is also committed to becoming a Living Wage Employer along with 11,000 other companies across the country.
That means all of our staff will be paid, at a minimum, the real living wage in line with the Living Wage Foundation's guidelines. This is an independently calculated hourly rate adjusted in line with the cost of living in the UK. At a time when this is rising sharply, fair pay is more important than ever. Currently, the real living wage stands at £10.90 across the UK and £11.95 in London, and this is set to rise further over the next year.
As an organisation entering the UK market for the first time, making a mark on the UK tech sector requires a lot more than just delivering a great product to our customers. It means setting the standard for fair, equitable, and meaningful employment. Staying true to our mission of delivering adaptive, tech-first workspaces means that work starts now.
From the Tech Talent Charter to the Living Wage, we hope that our strategy will not only benefit our UK talent, but light the way for change across the tech sector.
If you would like any further information about our commitment to the Tech Talent Charter or the Greater Manchester Good Employment Charter, please get in touch.
