For the Veramed leadership team, our business growth is more than a purely commercial exercise. Naturally, we must always prioritise our duties to our customers, employees, and shareholders. Yet, we also play a part in a wider ecosystem with shared responsibilities to the community, environment, and future generations. Success is measured by how well we contribute to building a better society as well as by the balance sheet. With this societal responsibility in mind, our team has been pioneering various initiatives and projects to positively impact both our internal working environment and the wider world. These encompass areas from the green agenda and sustainability to mental health and education.
Each of these projects is spearheaded by dedicated working groups of Veramed employees- or ‘Hives’ working together to make an impact. In this blog, I’ll outline both people and management-led projects and share our vision for the future.
Impacting on the Environment
In 2019 the UK became the first nation to pass laws to end its contribution to global warming by 2050. As a responsible organisation, we have a vital role in ensuring the realisation of this vision. To that end, our dedicated Environment Hive has established core initiatives to support our environmental responsibilities. First, a carbon off-setting initiative purchases projects worldwide such as reforestation, mangrove regeneration or tropical forest protection. Beyond this, we advocate internally and support employees in their individual efforts to enhance their climate impact profile.
Supporting the Community
No organisation is an island, and our Community Hive has begun developing several initiatives that will allow us to contribute to our wider society. One area close to our hearts is education and inspiring the next generation of Statisticians and statistical Programmers by sharing our insights. Our national ambitions to forge a future as a life sciences superpower must be underpinned by knowledge and skills. With this focus in mind, we recently visited Sunbury Manor High School to present and inspire students about career choices within the biostatistics field, and we have a list of schools planned for 2022. More traditionally, we continue with a series of sports and social events, including raising funds for our core charities. These charitable activities also provide meaningful occasions for our team members to share positive experiences working towards a common goal.
Building a better workplace
Our founders’ vision for Veramed was to create a business that genuinely puts our people at its heart and commits to rewarding and developing our team while maintaining a positive work-life balance. Making this a reality involves regular efforts and consistent communication across our team. To that end, we have implemented a series of ‘Pulse’ surveys and suggestion boxes to allow us to get clear feedback on our team’s feelings about the workplace, leadership, and their roles. Regular communication ensures that we can act quickly on feedback and take advantage of opportunities to improve. We were thrilled to be recognised by Best Companies as a Top 100 Employer, but we are always keen to do whatever we can to deepen our team connections by nurturing and developing our culture. We have also initiated similar feedback programmes to deepen our relationships with our customers as we scale.
We recognise that becoming a better business is a journey, not a destination, and it requires consistent, incremental efforts. To cement our commitment to this philosophy for the long-haul, we have updated our company’s ‘articles of association’, which effectively document our constitution. This constitution confirms Veramed’s intention to work towards a better society and environment while serving shareholders, customers, and employees.
Armed with both employee-led initiatives and high-level governance, we look forward to steering Veramed into a brighter 2022 and helping to shape the world for the better – no matter the challenges ahead.
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