Milk Link, Corporate Social Responsibility, A Positive Culture in the Workplace

We recognise that our people are central to the ongoing development and success of the business. As such, we are committed to developing a single, dynamic organisation and culture which empowers, develops and supports our people to help achieve our overall goals. During the financial year 2009-10 we have:

• Introduced programmes to ensure that we continue to attract, recruit and retain the best people for our current and future needs.
• Commenced a review of our employee reward and performance management systems to ensure that they encourage, recognise and reward high levels of contribution and performance
• Designed and begun to roll out high performance HR systems to drive consistently high standards in all of our employee facing activities. This will include a new employee handbook, revision of our employment policies and practices and new communication branding on employee communications to reflect our strong working relationships and teamwork ethose.
• Introduced revisions to our car policy to incentivise employees to drive lower CO2 emission vehicles
• Introduced childcare vouchers for all staff, a salary sacrifice arrangement for parents of children under 16. These enable our staff to make considerable savings on the cost of childcare.
• Retained our Investors in People status at our Taw Valley production facility.
• Sponsored two employees to participate in Project Eden, a world class, dairy technology foundation degree programme at Reaseheath College. This three year course will equip the students with the skills they need to face the challenges of operating in the dairy sector in the 21st century. We will sponsor two more students for the September 2010 intake.