ESG: Social

Evri wants to remove the stigma attached to mental health and ensure it’s treated as equally as physical health. Our commitment is to create a workplace culture where everyone feels appreciated, is treated fairly, and has access to the support and resources they require.

As part of a range of initiatives launched over the last few years, we’re upskilling managers to be aware of signs and symptoms of mental health issues, and to give them the confidence to support employees. We’ve also invested in training more Mental Health Ambassadors who are qualified (certified by Mental Health First Aid England) to listen non-judgementally, provide support and signpost people to relevant services.

Our commitment to combatting Modern Slavery was reaffirmed through the renewal of our membership with Slave Free Alliance for an additional three years. Further internal processes were implemented to effectively escalate and manage potential Modern Slavery concerns within our operations, accompanied by comprehensive training for HR teams to adeptly handle any cases that arise. Additionally, a thorough review and update of our supplier and labour agency audit processes were undertaken, ensuring alignment with best practices and regulatory standards.

Significant strides were made in enhancing our internal audit procedures, with audits completed using an improved process. Additionally, our colleagues have completed our online training module on Modern Slavery, which has now been incorporated into the induction process for all new hires within our operations.

Our mission is to create an amazing place of work for everyone. One of the ways we underpin that commitment is through our diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I) strategy. We want to create positive, impactful and meaningful change, helping us to achieve our overall objective of building an environment that works for everyone, where every person can bring – and be – their whole selves.

We’ve also launched employee networks. We have an LGBTQ+ network, a parents/ carers network and a neurodiversity network – all led by colleagues, with a director sponsor for each. The aim is to bring people together, raise awareness, and educate and celebrate key diversity strands.

We took part in the Inclusive Employers Standard and received Silver status – Evri is the first business in our industry to have this accreditation. From November 2023 we also became members of the Business Disability Forum, allowing our HR teams and line managers to access advice, support, tools and resources to enable better support of our disabled and neurodivergent colleagues.

Regular surveys are run to understand what our colleagues enjoy about working for us and what needs improving. Action plans are then built off the back of this and supported by our myView employee forum, which consists of employee representatives from around the business.

At Evri, 69% of our employees are represented by an independent trade union (data correct as of June 2024)

In March 2022 we announced we automatically enrolled our 12,000 Self- Employed Plus (SE+) couriers into a workplace pension scheme – a move welcomed by the GMB union as a “massive step forward”.

After an in-depth and diligent process, we were pleased to select Smart Pension as the provider of this scheme in July 2022. At the same time we also introduced the right to maternity/paternity leave for all SE+ couriers. When we first announced our SE+ model in 2019 we committed to continuing to develop our support for our self-employed couriers and we are proud to have made such big steps forward in 2022 and be leading the industry once again. Our couriers receive paid holiday and now a pension and maternity/paternity leave, coupled with earnings which are often well in excess (but never lower than) the National Living Wage.