Responsible business

Disability Confident

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:

• Ensuring our recruitment process is inclusive and accessible
• Guaranteeing to interview anyone with a disability whose application meets the minimum criteria for the post
• Anticipating and providing reasonable adjustments throughout our accessible office and equipment
• Supporting any existing employee who acquires a disability or long term health condition, enabling them to stay in work.

Women in Finance Charter

Nest signed up to HM Treasury’s Women in Finance Charter in July 2016. Its aim is to improve gender balance across financial services, recognising that gender balance will improve productivity, introduce new talents and improve decision making in our sector. In line with the charter, Nest set itself a goal to achieve 30 per cent of our leadership being female by September 2019. Nest has developed a women’s mentoring programme and will be rolling this out shortly. Nest’s Diversity and Inclusion Steering Group has responsibility for delivering the recommendations in the charter. Nest is now looking beyond 2019 and will set more ambitious targets for gender balance over the coming years.

Nest’s gender pay report

In 2017 UK legislation required all organisations with more than 250 members of staff to publish their gender pay gap on 31 March 2018. While we were not required to, we still elected to publish our gender pay report externally. This is part of Nest’s ongoing commitment to transparency and openness. 

Details of Nest’s 2019 hourly and bonus gender pay gap can be found in the table below.

You can read the full report here.

Volunteering

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:

Serving breakfast at a homeless shelter

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.

Helping children learn to read

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.

Using our expertise to resolve pension disputes

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.

Helping young adults prepare for interviews

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.

Charitable work

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.

Last updated: 10/20