Corporate Social Responsibility

In conducting business the Board recognises its responsibility to deliver quality to customers, recruit and reward people on merit alone, minimise health and safety risks, maintain stringent environmental protection standards and honour agreements with partners and suppliers. 

How does TMG manage CSR?
At TMG we view these responsibilities as things that should be embedded in how we operate our business on a daily basis. Our CSR framework covers four areas:

• The Customer: to do business fairly and with integrity
• People: To treat our people with dignity and respect
• The Community: to be a responsible neighbour
• The Environment and Workplace: to protect it for future generations

Each quadrant of the framework is owned by the relevant part of the business, with reports feeding into the Executive Committee on a regular basis.

The Customer
All TMG employees are guided by the group’s vision to be the partner of choice for automotive - our customers’ success is our business. We are committed to putting our customers first and being a customer-led organisation. With the number of different customer segments we have, we aim to tailor our services and sales approach to meet each segment’s needs; developing innovative solutions for our customers to help them get the most from our services.

We value our customers’ opinions and regularly measure their satisfaction with our Customer Satisfaction Index survey. This feedback helps us to ensure that our investment in innovation and resources is focused on providing better solutions for our customers.

People
People are the group’s most valuable resource and the success of the group is to the credit of all our employees. The continued success of TMG and its brands is something of which everyone associated with the business can be enormously proud. In recognition of the diverse needs of TMG’s employees, our flexible benefits scheme, My Benefits, enables employees to tailor their benefits package to meet their own specific needs. As well as our company funded benefits, we offer a wide range of voluntary benefits, including Childcare Vouchers, Cycle to Work and Critical Illness Insurance, that are proving popular amongst our employees. We are also committed to pursuing training programmes which equip all employees with the necessary skills to help them perform to the best of their ability. This investment in people is core to our aim to motivate and retain employees.

The group is committed to treating all its employees and job applicants fairly and equally. It is our policy not to discriminate on the basis of their gender, sexual orientation, marital or civil partner status, gender reassignment, race, religion or belief, colour, nationality, ethnic or national origin, disability or age, pregnancy or trade union membership or the fact that they are a part-time worker or a fixed-term employee. The equal opportunities policy operated by the group ensures all workers have a duty to act in accordance with this.

The average number of staff employed by the group on a full time equivalent basis during the year was 1,368 (2012: 1,514).

The Community
The group is committed to being a good neighbour and contributing positively to the communities in which we operate.

We continue to have a company-wide charity partnership with Help the Hospices, which gives staff the benefit of working with a national charity with national resources while directly supporting hospices in the communities where employees live and work. The relationships developed with local hospices have been very rewarding, with local fundraising efforts (from bake sales to band nights) going straight to the hospice matched to that office, keeping it in the community.

Being a good neighbour is not just about fundraising, however, and we also encourage employees to get involved with other causes that matter to them with the support of our community involvement and match sponsorship policies. The community involvement policy supports employees who wish to work with communities across the UK, either as private individuals or as employees of TMG (for team volunteering days, for example). We also have a successful community sponsorship programme, providing employees with a bursary to support local initiatives or clubs that they are involved with.

Donations to Help the Hospices and other charities during the year totalled £0.1 million (2012: £0.1 million).

The Environment and Workplace
The group continues to operate a policy of ensuring safe and pleasant working conditions for all employees, as far as possible within the constraints imposed by the working environment. A health and safety team is employed by the group and continues to promote a healthy and safe working environment. During the year there were no major injuries reported under the Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations.

Paper for the group’s magazines was sourced responsibly from sustainable resources. Through its arrangement with COMAG, the group benefited from COMAG’s contracts that had strict guidelines for the secure disposal and recycling of returned copies in accordance with agreed industry wide standards in the Periodical Publishers Association ("PPA") Best Practice Guidelines for Wholesale Stock Control and Returns Systems Document. The PPA, via its magazine publisher members, has in conjunction with the Government entered into a Producer Responsibility Agreement with DEFRA (the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs). This agreement commits the magazine industry to encourage the final consumer to put purchased magazines into the recycling process that ends up with copies being recycled as newsprint and not landfill.

TMG has a group-wide, environmental remit with a primary focus on carbon management. The Fleet Management processes have been improved with the provision of monthly fuel data for review by the Executive team. The group has worked with the Carbon Trust to identify energy efficiency measures that can be implemented at all office locations and used fuel efficiency data to help drive both carbon emission reduction and improve health and safety as the group worked with drivers to review their driving habits. TMG’s environmental impact has also reduced through the group rationalising the number of properties it maintains.

In the current financial year TMG has used this data to manage its emissions, substantially reducing its total to 2,002 (2012: 2,161) tonnes of carbon from its premises’ use of electricity, gas and car fleet fuel.

Carbon footprint of TMG’s car fleet and offices