The Social Enterprise Academy is committed to fair working practices and supports the Scottish Government’s ‘Fair Work First’ policy.
Fair Work First is the Scottish Government’s flagship policy for driving high quality, inclusive, and fair work across the labour market by applying fair work criteria to grants, other funding, and contracts, where relevant to do so. The Scottish Government is encouraging employers to adopt fair work practices, specifically:
- Payment of at least the real Living Wage
- Providing appropriate channels for effective workers’ voice, such as trade union recognition
- Investment in workforce development
- No inappropriate use of zero hours contracts
- Action to tackle the gender pay gap and to create a more diverse and inclusive workplace
- Offer flexible and family friendly working practices for all workers from day one of employment
- Opposing the use of fire and rehire practices
The Social Enterprise Academy demonstrates our commitment to fair work in the following ways:
Real Living Wage
The Social Enterprise Academy has been accredited as a Living Wage Employer since 2015 and is committed to continuing to provide this benefit.
Employee Voice
The Social Enterprise Academy has individual and collective voice channels to listen to and engage with staff.
Individual employee voice is gained via our annual staff survey and pulse surveys. These surveys allow us to see what is working well and what areas need developed. Staff also meet regularly at 1-2-1s and annual reviews with line managers.
In 2024 our staff forum was formed to provide a collective employee voice. The forum is made up of a volunteer rep from each team and meets every 6 weeks.
As a values-driven organisation the Social Enterprise Academy are committed to continuing to work with our staff and our staff forum to make improvements to the workplace.
Workforce Development
The Social Enterprise Academy want to ensure staff develop the skills they need for their roles and to be the best they can be in the workplace. We encourage staff to attend Academy learning programmes and provide other learning opportunities such as team day sessions, learning lunches and resources on our learning platform. We actively promote external learning opportunities such as conferences and events. The Social Enterprise Academy has funded and will continue to fund staff through recognised qualifications such as apprenticeships and CIPD and pays staff fees for professional memberships.
Zero Hour Contracts
The Social Enterprise Academy does not use zero-hour contracts for our staff. We use permanent, temporary or fixed-term contracts.
Gender Pay Gap and EDI
The Social Enterprise Academy salaries have always been paid for the role and have never been related to gender.
Our recruitment practices are designed to attract a diverse workplace (anonymising applications, checking ads for gender bias, offering examples of reasonable adjustments for applications and interviews)
Family Friendly Policies
Our flexible working policy has always given staff the right to make flexible working requests from day one. We offer 35 days annual leave per year (including public holidays). As part of our wellbeing toolkit benefits, we offer staff an additional half day leave each month. As part of our recruitment process, we offer flexible working options including working from home. We also offer enhanced maternity, partner and sick leave policies
Opposing Fire and Rehire Practices
The Social Enterprise Academy opposes, and has never engaged in, ‘fire and rehire’ practices.