Nest aims to be an example of good corporate social responsibility. As an organisation with a social purpose, we are committed to looking at our impact as an organisation in the round: on the environment and wider community, and on our employees.
Nest recognises the positive impact that diversity brings to organisations and society as a whole. We have signed up to the Department for Work and Pensions’ Disability Confident campaign. This is a voluntary scheme which aims to make the most of the talents that disabled people bring to the workforce and increase the proportion of the disabled population in work.
We have committed to employ and support the career development of disabled people. This translates into a variety of initiatives such as:
Nest’s Women in Finance target was to have 30% women in senior management roles by Autumn 2019. Not only did we hit this in September 2019, there are currently 45% women in senior management within the company.
We’re pleased to have beaten our target, but recognise that men and women make up equal proportions of the UK’s working age population and our membership. Our new target is to have women make up 50% of senior management roles by 2025.
Our Chief Executive Officer, Helen Dean CBE is female but we recognise that there's still more work to be done at the executive committee (ExCo) level running Nest, along with a gender pay gap.
We'll continue to:
In 2017 UK legislation required all organisations with more than 250 members of staff to publish their gender pay gap annually from 31 March 2018. While we’re not required to publish further details or action we might be taking, we still elect to do so. We also publish our ethnicity pay gap report as part of Nest’s ongoing commitment to transparency and openness.
2021 Ethnicity pay gap summary
More detailed reports containing data for 2020-21 and 2021-22 will be published later this year.
Volunteering can bring benefits both in terms of social impact and staff development. Staff are entitled to take four days per year to volunteer, which can be used to work with charities or organisations of their choice. Regular internal communications encourage staff to volunteer, either individually or in groups. Here are some examples of the volunteering work that our staff have undertaken this year:
Nest staff volunteered at a homeless shelter by helping to prepare, cook and serve breakfast for around 300 people, many of whom had slept on the streets that night.
Some Nest staff take part in a virtual reading programme to help children aged 9 to 11 to learn to read. Nest staff help them develop their reading and language skills by reading with them over video calls.
The Pensions Ombudsman assigns us cases, where we use our experience and expertise to help savers, employers or trustees who have an enquiry, complaint or dispute about their pension. We never handle any cases relating to Nest.
A group of Nest colleagues spent the day with local students and graduates to help them with job readiness, developing their soft skills and improving their understanding of interview etiquette.
Nest employees don’t just volunteer - we also donate and fundraise for charitable causes. Here are a selection of some of the charitable endeavours from Nest staff this year:
Macmillan coffee morning
Nest staff donned their aprons, took out their mixing bowls and pre-heated their ovens to bake cookies, cakes, biscuits and bread to raise money for Macmillan.
Nest Quiz night
Almost 100 colleagues took part in the annual quiz night, to battle it out to win the title of Nest’s best brain. All proceeds went to Macmillan.
The big bike ride
All staff can use their volunteer days to undertake charitable activities, including fundraising. Richard Lockwood, Nest’s Chief Financial Officer, took part in a 300km bike ride over three days in Norway in aid of World at Play - a charity which uses sport and play programmes to enrich the lives of young people facing adversity. This mammoth ride included going up and over 1500m to reach the mountain Tindevegen.