Community

CDS Global in Market Harborough, Leicestershire, employs a large number of local residents, as such, we feel it is really important to look after our staff and local community.

Each Christmas for the past six years, CDS Global has held a Christmas Grotto on the premises and invited all staff to bring along, not only their children, but grandchildren, nieces and nephews also. The event included a visit to Santa in his magical Grotto with a gift for each child, refreshments, games, entertainers and, on occasion, real liv e reindeer. This was a huge success, the thank you letters we received from children who attended was testament to that. Last year, however, we held a party for all staff to attend instead and used the opportunity to say farewell to our CEO who retired. Votes will be taken each year to decide whether we have a party for staff or Grotto for the children. After all, it’s what our staff want that counts.

As the staff working at our company are classed as our community, we want to make sure they’re offered the best employment possible, with positive elements to help not only at work but with every day life. That’s why in 2007 we launched the Employee Assistance Program. This is both a telephone and online support service to provide practical assistance for a diverse range of issues. This program is available to all staff .

Other positive elements include Busy Bees Child care vouchers, introduced this year, to help all busy parents with most types of child care. CDS Global has also introduced a 20 percent discount on private healthcare to all staff.

To help local business, we contacted a number of companies and negotiated discounts, should we promote their services to our employees. This has been the case for local hairdressers, leisure centres, restaurants and many more businesses nearby. This benefits the businesses with a larger turnover of clients and benefits our staff by providing them with good discounts.

Charity
CDS Global will always go above and beyond when it comes to raising money for charity, one of those charities close to our heart is the Freddie Carter Trust fund.

Freddie Carter is the grandson of a key supplier with whom we have developed a long standing close working relationship. Freddie was born with Severe Global Development Delay but in February 2005 he had a major epileptic fit which resulted in him being on a life support machine. Freddie pulled through, however he has been left brain damaged and wheelchair bound because of it.

In order for Freddie’s parents to help with his improvement and cope with his growth, they set up the Freddie Carter Trust Fund to refurbish their house and make the necessary adjustments to accommodate Freddie. CDS Global has, in total, paid £5,500 towards this charity and since then, in 2007, another £7,800.00 for various other charities, which include:

Shoebox Appeal
Children In Need
Breast Cancer Awareness
Sport Relief
Jeans for Genes
Race for Life
Marie Curie Cancer Care
Red Nose Day

As well as those charities, closer to home we wrote letters to local schools, hospitals and care homes to ask if there was anything they needed.  This list has now been compiled so that any future fundraising events can pay towards one of the listed items.

CDS Global has also recently become a proud sponsor of Market Harborough Cricket Club. The club was founded in 1840 and is a part of the heritage of the town. As part of our strategy for building links with the local community this relationship fits in ideally.

What we would like to achieve moving forward
Going forward we are aware that with a large workforce for a small town we should use this resource to help out with various needs and projects. It is hoped that in the next 12 months we can use some willing pairs of hands to support local charities and schools in a practical way. Ideas are being thought through currently.