As well as delivering editorial services for a wide range of clients from huge communications agencies to smaller NGOs and charities, at Accuracy Matters we also want to make sure we have a framework in place which helps to promote equality in business. After all, equality matters too.
As such, we were very happy to be confirmed as signatories to the Women’s Empowerment Principles (WEPs) earlier this year. These principles are the brainchild of the UN Global Compact, the world’s largest corporate sustainability initiative. Their mission is to ‘encourage companies to align strategies and operations with the universal principles of human rights, labour, environment and anti-corruption’ and the WEPs are part of that drive.
Accuracy Matters is a women-owned business, while 75% of our staff and 78% of our freelance pool are women. We take flexible working very seriously – all of our team choose their own working hours, provided they are able to deliver what’s needed and meet our customers’ deadlines. And we’ve had a few AM babies in the company’s lifetime which has given us plenty of practice at making Accuracy Matters a great place for working mums (and dads).
So you would expect us to have a head-start on the WEPs, but becoming a signatory is only the first step. We’re embarking on a journey to fully embed the WEPs into the company’s purpose, brand and processes, engaging the team to support this and eventually reporting back via our WEPs company profile page.
The seven principles cover:
• High-level corporate leadership
• Treat all women and men fairly at work without discrimination
• Employee health, wellbeing and safety
• Education and training for career advancement
• Enterprise development, supply chain and marketing practices
• Community initiatives and advocacy
• Measurement and reporting
I’m really excited to take Accuracy Matters forward on this journey, demonstrating our commitment to these vital aspects of business management, which are sorely lacking in many places of work, and I look forward to reporting back on our progress further down the line.
In the meantime if your business is looking to commit to fairer working principles take a look and let us know what you think.
Image by Markus Winkler on Unsplash
