Sustainability for Colleagues
Our organisation is all about people, each individual person doing what they are good at, and enjoy doing, ideally for most of the time they are working.
Cycle to Work Scheme
The cycle to work scheme is an employee benefit that saves colleagues 25-39% on a bike and accessories. Colleagues pay nothing upfront and the payments are taken tax efficiently from their salary by our payroll team.
Colleagues can choose a bike and/or cycling accessories up to the value of £1000. Our accounts team will purchase the item and organise a deduction from the colleague’s salary over the course of a year. For example, if your salary is around £15,000 and the bike package you have chosen is £500, you could save £125. This is a no-interest loan, paid before tax so anyone who pays tax and/or national insurance saves the tax on the cost.
Sustainable Travel Plans
Travelling to work can be expensive on your pocket and costly for the planet too. We are delighted to have implemented new, sustainable travel plans for colleagues to establish the most sustainable way to get to work. The travel plans include:
- All the bus routes and local bus stops
- All the local train stations and the route from the train station to work
- A map with all your colleagues home addresses marked on them – so you might share cars and lifts. We won’t hand out the actual addresses without your permission, but if you spot someone close to you, you can ask your manager who that is and your manager will then ask that person if he/she is happy to speak with you.
Click here to view all action plans.
Hadland Colleague Trust
The Tops & Aspire Employee Trust has been established in order for colleagues to support each other, and the community, through time of financial or emotional hardship.
The Trust is a really a simple idea. Colleagues opt to donate to the Trust fund on a monthly basis. A staff member suffering hardship, whether financial or emotional, fills in an application to benefit from the fund and the subcommittee votes on applications. The application(s) with the most votes gets given funds from the Trust… that’s it. Super simple, and highly effective! Click here to find out more.
Sporks
As part of our welcome goodie bag for new colleagues in all parts of the organisation, we have purchased some Sporks – which are combined fork/spoons and in this case also with a serrated edge for a knife!
We have chosen recycled metal over bamboo because the metal ones will last longer and therefore not use up resources…reduce, re-use, recycle! Secondly, from a hygiene perspective washing metal sporks is fine, whereas bamboo sporks will begin to break down over quite a short time, and of course harbour germs.
Eco lunch bags
As part of our welcome goodie bag for new colleagues in all parts of the organisation, we have purchased some eco lunch bags.
These are our latest contribution to assisting colleagues to enjoy a healthier and more eco-friendly lifestyle. The lunch bags are insulated so you can put hot or cold food into them.
We have tested the size and you can get 4 Chinese takeaway plastic boxes in them – more than enough to keep you going for most of the day – and without buying one-use plastic-wrapped food on the way to work. These will save you money every week but will take you a minute or two to pack at home with your favourite sandwiches, pasta or salad, rather than a minute or two to choose and pay for, in the shop. Plus you will have the feel-good factor of knowing that you are doing your bit for the environment and future generations every day by not buying one-use plastic and by using these bags which are made from recycled plastic, and can be recycled again when you have finished using them by giving them to someone who can, or by placing in your recycling bin.
Bamboo toothbrushes
As part of our welcome goodie bag for new colleagues in all parts of the organisation, we have purchased some adult baamboo toothbrushes.
Tops Day Nurseries were excited to have introduced bamboo toothbrushes for children to continue with our sustainable ethos and removing plastic where possible. Whilst these smaller bamboo toothbrushes are provided for the children, bamboo toothbrushes for adults can be expensive.
We know that looking after your teeth is just as important as the children looking after theirs, so every colleague has the option to request an adult bamboo toothbrush for themselves, free of charge. This to show that we care about your teeth as much as the children’s and for our nursery staff as an extra thank you for doing toothbrushing with the children, we are sure this makes an impact, quite possibly saving them from pain and certainly setting them up with good habits for life.
Free DIY wet wipes for staff children
We understand that many of our colleagues are busy working parents and getting everything ready for their child’s day at Nursery can be time consuming. We would therefore like to make colleagues lives just that little bit easier by providing all colleague children’s wipes at nursery free of charge.
The wipes that we provide will be our own home made variety which everyone will be used to making / using whilst at the nursery. As well as saving you money, for those who didn’t already bring in homemade wipes, this is also helping to protect our environment.
Plants
We are delighted to have introduced a new budget which will allow staff to buy new plants for their setting and their office.
Toxic air is an increasingly serious problem for us and for our children. Toxic air can get into our homes and nurseries from the roads, but is added to by aerosols, cleaning chemicals, formaldehyde in some furniture, chemicals in paint and carpets, and it isn’t flushed out well due to our insulated, closed window homes. Fortunately, there is a way to help ourselves, and that is to introduce or increase the numbers of air cleaning, growing plants in our environments, which is why we have introduced this new budget.
Electric vehicle hire
The ability to allow colleagues to borrow a car or van from our fleet of electric vehicles not only helps them with travel or removal, but it also helps the environment by keeping their journey sustainable too!
These cars are fully electric and have many different benefits when it comes to helping the environment and being sustainable. The biggest benefit of which being that the cars do not emit toxic gases or smoke as they run on a clean energy source.
Continuous professional development
There is scope for progression for everyone within the Tops Day Nurseries family.
Colleagues are able to benefit from over 100 free training courses, from safeguarding children, equality & diversity to food hygiene and mental health awareness.
Our sister company Aspire Training Team provides childcare, business, leadership and management qualifications from level 1 – 5. All colleagues are encouraged to continue training.
Our Director of Quality Audit & Training, Amy Alderson regularly supports our senior colleagues in achieving degrees.