9th October, 2025

Earlier this year, we were delighted to welcome the Institute for Customer Services (ICS) to the Good Business Charter (GBC). They joined fellow ICS members and GBC-accredited organisations such as Aviva, Legal & General, Northumbrian Water Group and TSB  . 

During ICS’s National Customer Service Week, we’re highlighting our Commitment to Customers component. This requires organisations to publish their commitment to their customers, as well as gather customer feedback and address concerns – while our employee focussed components ensure that the staff providing frontline customer service are well supported.  

The GBC‘s founder, Julian Richer (founder of Richer Sounds, the UK’s largest hi-fi retailer), famously credits his business success to looking after customers and employees. These values are at the heart of the Good Business Charter. 

Why commitment to customers matters 

 We spoke to Craig Brown, COO, Retail at Legal & General (GBC-accredited and an ICS member) on why this commitment is so important: 

“National Customer Service Week is a fantastic opportunity to celebrate the passion and commitment our customer service teams, partners and intermediaries bring to our customers every day. It’s their efforts that set us apart, and I’m proud of the way our teams go above and beyond. Organisations that are thriving now are the truly customer focussed ones, and our customers want fast, efficient and personalised service. This has, and will continue to inform how we do things at L&G to ensure we continue to not only meet but exceed our customers expectations, guided by the Commitment to Customer principle of the Good Business Charter.” 

 We also spoke to Dawn Creighton, Head of Customer Strategy and Experience at Northumbrian Water Group (GBC-accredited and an ICS member): 

“At Northumbrian Water Group, our customers are at the heart of everything we do. We’re proud to be accredited by the Good Business Charter and members of the Institute of Customer Service (ICS), reflecting our passion for delivering unrivalled customer service, first time, every time. 

“This National Customer Service Week, we’re celebrating our teams, whether they support our customers directly or work behind the scenes, sharing stories of customer service excellence with internal awards and recognising colleagues who go above and beyond. We’re delighted to be welcoming Martin Connelly, Client Director at ICS who will be helping us to judge the top entries. 

“We’re also holding community events to thank our customers for the role they play in helping us to deliver brilliant service, such as supporting our ‘Bin the Wipe’ campaign, recognising that partnerships help make great service possible.” 

ICS’s CEO, Jo Causon shared her thoughts on being GBC accredited and National Customer Service Week. 

“The Institute of Customer Services is pleased to have become Good Business Charter accredited this year, and we are delighted that they have joined us this year in celebrating National Customer Service Week by shining a spotlight on its Commitment to Customers component.

We are looking forward to working with the Good Business Charter into the future to Inspire a Service Nation, where businesses show they care about their customers and in doing so benefit from long-term, sustainable growth.”

A call to business leaders  

This National Customer Service Week, we’re proud to stand alongside those celebrating the importance of making a fair and transparent commitment to customers and supporting their customer facing employees. It’s not just the right thing to do – it makes good business sense. 

If your organisation is already doing the right thing, we encourage you to get recognised for it by becoming GBC accredited. 

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5th March, 2025

By Jenny Herrera, CEO of Good Business Charter

Yesterday, the Department for Business and Trade announced the amendments being tabled for the Employment Rights Bill.  Deputy Prime Minister, Angela Rayner, who recently spoke at our anniversary celebration said:

“For too long millions of workers have been forced to face insecure, low paid and irregular work, while our economy is blighted by low growth and low productivity.   

“We are turning the tide – with the biggest upgrade to workers’ rights in a generation, boosting living standards and bringing with it an upgrade to our growth prospects and the reforms our economy so desperately needs.”

She was delighted to find herself at our anniversary event in the company of many businesses who are broadly supportive of the measures to make work pay and champion the people who work for them, without which they of course could not function.

Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds recognised this in the press release with his comment that “many businesses already have worker friendly practices in place and can attest to the positive impact they have on retention, productivity and job satisfaction.”

That is our experience and the experience of the more than 1,000 organisations that are accredited with the Good Business Charter. It makes good business sense to treat your workers well – there is a clear link to improved retention and productivity.

We were delighted to see in the amendments the commitment to include agency workers in the ban on exploitative zero-hours contracts.  Of course those who wish to work in that way – and we recognise that there are some who do – should not lose that ability to enjoy the flexibility afforded them by an opportunity to pick and choose when they work and for how many hours each week.

But, when we talk to businesses and really understand the mechanisms within their place of work, we are aware of some where there is a kind of subset of workers – the casual workers, the agency workers – who are seen as somehow separate from the business.  That is why we are passionate about the real living wage, fair hours and contracts and well-being, representation and EDI policies covering everyone on a company’s payroll, not just the permanent staff.

Some people choose agency work.  Many don’t, and if an agency worker has been working for an organisation for a significant amount of time – 12 weeks is the period bandied around to agree those regular hours – then we would argue that colleague is needed by the business and should be covered by legal requirements set out in the Employment Rights Bill.  Commitments to reasonable notice of shifts and proportionate pay when shifts are cancelled is also very important and aligns with our Fairer Hours and Contracts requirements that we have had in place since the GBC launched in 2020 – our definition of ‘reasonable notice’, agreed with the TUC and CBI in 2020, is two weeks.

The focus of the Employment Rights Bill is firmly on the low paid and ensuring work pays – agency workers on low pay are already struggling to make ends meet in the UK with the high cost of living – it is a question of dignity and respect to then ensure that they have security of hours, if that is what they wish (which Living Wage Foundation and TUC research would strongly suggest they do).

Great to see increased support for those same low workers when it comes to statutory sick pay too!

Paul Nowak, who also spoke at our event in February, underlined what we too believe at the Good Business Charter – that all businesses should be operating on a level playing field (and not just businesses but public and third sector organisations too):

“This is about creating a modern economy that works for workers and business alike. Driving up employment standards in Britain will stop good employers from being undercut by the bad and will mean more workers benefit from a union voice.”

The CEO of Good Business Charter accredited, Richer Sounds, Julie Abraham, summed it up nicely:

“At Richer Sounds, we have always put the treatment and wellbeing of our colleagues at the forefront of everything we do.  Any responsible business will know that well-treated and well-paid colleagues will be beneficial in numerous ways.  

Happy colleagues are likely to be more productive. This also leads to reduced stock loss and higher staff retention, which in turn, minimises recruitment and training costs, not to mention disruption to established teams.  We support any government legislation that will help end exploitative working practices and improve the lives of working people.”

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How do we really know what a company is like? Often it is only when you work at it that the true nature of its priorities and culture become obvious – though other stakeholders may get a sense in their interactions with them.

Richer Sounds is well known as a company with an incredibly high level of retention – and no job vacancies. There is a reason for that – people who work there feel valued and enjoy what they do! Their customer accolades show that when people walk into the shop and interact with RS colleagues, they do sense this value for people – and other partners in their interactions feel it too.

Yet it is not just a general sense. Richer Sounds has a clear way of communicating what it believes in and its Founder, Julian Richer, has been vocal about his views on the importance of paying everyone a real living wage and ensuring they have security in their hours, for example.

Disclosure requirements

In a world where more ESG disclosure requirements are being created and increasing the reporting burden for companies, are we at risk of losing our clear, guiding principle on being sustainable? Are we moving to a world where companies report more than ever before, but are no longer pushing forwards on ESG agendas? Where we have plateaued in our efforts to improve?

I was recently told that the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive will add 200 pages to a company’s annual report – 200 pages!!! That represents an almost unfathomable amount of work to gather together all that data and ensure compliance. Yet outside of the benchmarking and reporting departments of big companies, what does that even mean to the rest of the workforce? Will it truly translate into concrete actions to improve practices and raise the bar on business behaviour? I fear true movement forwards on the agenda will be lost amid all the reporting.

In January 2023, Joe Kaeser at Siemens, wrote an article as part of the world economic forum, talking about the north star of ESG. Against a backdrop of criticism of ESG, he wrote:

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5th September, 2024

By Jenny Herrera, CEO of the Good Business Charter

The Centre for Progressive Change is leading the way on its Safe Sick Pay campaign, a crucial initiative in a country where the Statutory Sick Pay system is one of the least generous in Europe. This is an area where the leadership shown by responsible employers is not just commendable—it’s absolutely vital.

The harsh reality of statutory sick pay

Government sick pay in the UK is so low (£116.75 a week, kicking in from day four) that it works out as less than £3 an hour for a full-time worker. It is nowhere near enough to be able to pay the bills. That means that when people are off sick, unable to work, they are worrying about money. More than half of people on Statutory Sick Pay are living in poverty.

And there is another problem – if you earn less than £123 per week with your employer, you fall below the ‘lower earnings limit’, and are not entitled to Statutory Sick Pay. TUC analysis in 2024 shows that 1.3 million people do not earn enough to qualify for Statutory Sick Pay – and women are twice as likely as men to miss out for this reason. 6.5% of women do not earn enough to qualify for statutory sick pay, compared to 2.8% of men. And men are far more likely than women to receive full pay when they are ill (62% compared to 52%).

Illness and poverty: a vicious cycle 

I also lead a charity that steps into the gap for people in UK poverty – and becoming unwell is a key catalyst for a ‘just-about manageable’ situation turning into a full-blown crisis.  Perhaps the illness lasts 2 weeks – but that is enough, with 3 days of no pay and then the remainder at such a low rate – to start a spiral of being unable to pay rent and then potential eviction or getting into debt with utility bills or similar in order to keep their home.

No-one chooses or wants to be ill.  And when you are ill, the most important thing to do is to rest and give your body time to recover.  You simply cannot do that when financial worries start mounting up which leaves many on low pay in our nation unable to afford to be ill!

Disparities in sick pay are a factor in the income inequality in our nation. In 2022, households in the bottom 20% of the population had on average a disposable income of £13,218, whilst the top 20% had £83,687.  I would suggest many of those top 20% have benefits through work for free private healthcare, and if not, have the disposable income to pay for it.  Meanwhile, the cleaners who come to their office or perhaps those serving food in the canteen live in fear of being unwell – knowing their disposable income is too low to afford any time on SSP if they even reach the lower earnings limit to receive it!

Impact on low-paid workers 

Furthermore, some of the lowest paid jobs are also those most likely to lead to sickness because of the sheer number of people they are dealing with in settings such as hospitality and healthcare.  The reality is we live in a country where some people are exposed to potential germs as part of their job but find themselves with zero protection if they were to get unwell from those germs.  This should sit uncomfortably with us – we were acutely aware of it during the pandemic but our key workers soon faded out of the limelight again, left to suffer alone.

The stress of needing to get back into work as soon as possible increases the risk people come back still unwell, spread that illness which can impact on productivity more widely and/or they soon become unwell again in a desperate cycle.  Are we really surprised the number of people off on long-term sick is so high?

Learning from good practices 

We can embrace a better way.  We can learn from good businesses.  We can listen better to our workforce to see what would be helpful for them.  We can adequately care for people in a way that keeps them from crisis.

Employee wellbeing does not stand in an island – it is linked to decent pay, secure hours, a genuine voice for employees, and a place where everyone feels included.  Indeed, the statistics quoted above show a concerning disparity between men and women which is an area of EDI that should have long been resolved – but remains an issue.

Get these things right and there is a good chance there will be less sickness in the first place – but illnesses exist and we will all likely suffer one thing or another at some time in our lives.  We urgently need to up our game on how we care for those in their hour of need – whether it be a bad head cold, a heart attack, depression or surgery after a car accident.  Let’s commit together to not add financial stress to their ailments.

Good Business Charter

At the Good Business Charter, we do not currently ask a specific question about sick pay in our accreditation but we do recommend as best practice generous sick pay, which has no waiting days and that matches or exceeds the real living wage.   We want our accredited organisations to be truly leading the way in how they approach sick pay.

We may not have a specific component on sick pay but I believe adherence to each of our 5 colleague components will help create a more supportive environment to help those who need support when unwell.  Firstly, those most impacted by the poor rates of sick pay are the people on low pay.  GBC accredited organisations commit to paying at least the real living wage to their employees which enables them to live to minimum income standards as established by Joseph Rowntree Foundation.

The challenges of low pay are exacerbated if they are also experiencing uncertain hours on top of that with all the insecurity zero and minimal hours contracts bring.  It feels like those making decisions on sick pay – Heads of HR/People and more senior – have too often forgotten the challenges of making ends meet on low wages.  That means becoming unwell can be catastrophic.  What to a business may just seem like a budget line is so important to individuals just about managing financially on low wages and petrified of becoming ill.

An example of good practice on sick pay is Leek Building Society who have a supportive occupational sick pay scheme, with full pay for six months for individuals with significant health conditions.

To find out more about the Centre for Progressive Policy’s Safe Sick campaign please see here.

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14th May, 2024

By Jenny Herrera, CEO of the Good Business Charter

I think we all know that on our own we can achieve little. It is as we partner with others that our collective voice can be amplified and the potential for change increases.

We are proud to partner with the Institute of Directors (IoD), who was our 1,000^th organisation to accredit, and who recently published their manifesto for business, framed as a policy roadmap for the next UK government.

I wanted to highlight the overlaps with the Good Business Charter’s 10 components and reference other partners in this space as together we seek to drive change. As more organisations accredit with the GBC, we show that our standards are achievable and that therefore there is no reason not to make such practices the established norm in our nation. The Good Business Charter (GBC) and its accredited organisations put people first.

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19th March, 2024

By Jenny Herrera, CEO of the Good Business Charter

Oxfam started the year publishing a report entitled ‘Inequality Inc: How corporate power divides our world and the need for a new era of public action‘.  It followed the annual cry from the High Pay Centre about how few days it takes the average FTSE100 CEO to earn the same as the average UK annual wage.  Just three days is the answer.

Oxfam followed up the report with a helpful series of emails pulling out some of the key elements.  Part 3 honed in on how corporates fuel inequality and the damaging impact of policies that undermine workers whilst the funds of the wealthy surge paint a shocking picture.  Here are a few stats they emphasised:

• Of more than 1,600 of the largest and most influential corporations worldwide, a mere 0.4% of corporations are publicly committed to paying their workers a living wage and support a living wage in their value chains
• 0.7% of these corporations meet a global bar for collective bargaining
• Meanwhile, 82% of profits from major corporations were paid out in dividends and buybacks
• Of the major global corporations, only 24% have a public commitment to gender equality and just 2.6% of corporations disclose information on the ratio of pay of women to men
• An estimated $1 trillion in profits – 35% of foreign profits – were shifted to tax havens in 2022, depriving societies of resources to address inequality

It seems clear to me that the decisions large businesses are making are actively contributing to the rising inequality in our globalised world, and having just finished reading ‘The Inequality of Wealth’ by Liam Byrne, and ‘The Richer, The Poorer’ by Stewart Langsley, I have a better appreciation now of the specific picture in the UK and particularly how government policy has contributed to the current state of affairs where the wealthiest are shielded and the poorest struggle.

Yet, the very fact there seems to be increasing talk about inequality is encouraging.  Recognising there is a problem, and that increased inequality provides a real risk to society, is an important first step and I hope will help decision makers see that more fairness needs to be brought into our system.  A fairness that rewards every person who works a decent wage, where everyone pays their fair share of taxes.

The Good Business Charter represents a starting block on responsible business behaviour but as our team of trustees and staff have entered 2024, we have gained an increased appreciation for the high bar our 10 components actually set.  It shouldn’t be a surprise when I look at the stats that Oxfam report.  Too few businesses pay workers a living wage – directly in the UK in the form of the real living wage or indirectly ensuring living wages are paid through their supply chain.  Too few businesses facilitate collective bargaining to ensure their workers are heard, or find alternative ways to ensure the employee voice is heard in the boardroom.

Recent high profile cases of Brewdog and Capita abandoning the real living wage underline the way people – everyday, hard-working people – still seem to be bottom of the pecking order with profits to shareholders put first.  Profits that, in some corporations, are still too often inflated because not enough tax is paid on them before distribution.

One large organisation said to me this month ‘well, we didn’t actually need to change our behaviour to join the Good Business Charter’.  Their argument was that so much is governed by regulation that they have to do everything within the Good Business Charter’s 10 components.  It is lovely that they think that is the case – but what they need to realise is that they are exemplary and in the minority if they can accredit to the GBC.

Alongside a conversation like that, I’ve had conversations with others who feel unable to implement the real living wage to their regular contractors or have their small suppliers on long payment terms as standard practice.  Then there are the companies where their workers are in the UK … but their Head Office is mysteriously elsewhere.  The day we get a company change their registered office back to the UK in order to accredit with the Good Business Charter, and therefore pay their fair share of tax to the country educating and caring for their workforce, I will be dancing in the streets with joy!

Let’s not reinvent the wheel.  We have an accreditation that could become part of investing and procurement decisions, just as it is for customer and employee decisions.  The reality is that a country full of businesses committed to the GBC’s 10 components would truly contribute to reducing the terrible inequality that currently exists, and genuinely put all people first.

Join us in championing fairness and equity by supporting the Good Business Charter and accredit today.

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19th February, 2024

As chair of the Institute of Business Ethics (IBE), that is a question that I am regularly asked.

We exist to champion the highest standards of ethical business behaviour. So we have a lot in common with the Good Business Charter – of which I am a big fan.

Charles Wookey and the late Loughlin Hickey, who did so much to establish Blueprint for Better Business used to say, only half-jokingly, it had taken them a year to develop their foundational one-side of A4 Blueprint Principles: https://www.blueprintforbusiness.org/the-principles/

And then a second year to produce Blueprint’s Framework for becoming a Purpose-led business: https://www.blueprintforbusiness.org/the-framework/

Well, in a similar spirt of partial jocularity, and recognising the value of brevity and “simplicity the other side of complexity,” I’d say, it has taken the IBE almost forty years, to refine down to a single side of A4, the essence of what we know about striving to do business ethically. In our case, this is our Business Ethics Framework. See below.

It starts with being purpose-led – so close links there to Blueprint; ethical values, leadership at all levels of a business; and all helping to shape organisational culture: the way we do business around here, especially when we think no one else is watching! In other words: behaviours: how does an organisation want and expect its employees to behave: to each other, to customers, suppliers, competitors and communities from which the business derives its licence to operate.

Supporting all of this, the IBE believes are some critical foundations. These include having a robust Code of Ethics which explains in simple language, how the business expects its

employees to behave to each other, to customers, suppliers, business partners, competitors and society at large. Is this Code regularly updated? Is it easy to find – or conversely one of those policies “somewhere on the company Intranet?!”

Are the key messages of the company’s Code of Ethics shared in induction of new employees? In regular training and refresh sessions? Does the business try to bring their Code of Ethics to life with real-world ethical dilemmas that people in the business have actually faced? Are leaders at all levels of the organisation talking about behaving ethically – and exploring openly some of the “grey” areas when it comes to ethical decision-making?

Amongst other foundational elements are the links to management training and especially to first-line management training. As a Companion of the CMI (Chartered Management Institute) I have reverberating around my brain, the fact that, according to CMI/YouGov research, 82% of new managers in the UK have received no formal management training before taking up post. It is also important to link ethical behaviour to rewards and recognition. I suspect many of us will know of organisations that talk a good talk on doing business ethically, but still reward and recognise “rainmakers” who bring in the results, no questions asked! And is there a genuine “speak-up” culture, so that issues are raised early, rather than when things have deteriorated massively, and employees have to resort to the “nuclear option” of “whistle-blowing?”

To help businesses large and small, to embed the different “building blocks” of the Business Ethics Framework, the IBE has lots of Good Practice Guides, Board Guidance and innovations notes, in our IBE Knowledge Hub: https://www.ibe.org.uk/knowledge-hub.html

Having all of these foundations in place does not automatically guarantee that a business will always behave ethically – all human institutions – by definition – are fallible; but having these different components of the Business Ethics Framework provide the best “fighting chance” of avoiding ethical lapses – or ensuring faster recovery if ethical misbehaviour has occurred.

In support of all of this, the IBE has a Triple-A role: as Authority on doing business ethically, as an Adviser to individual businesses (often when they need extra help after some ethical problems) and as an Advocate for the positive business case for doing business ethically (as well as it is just better business and the right thing to do!).

As our supporters know, we aim to fulfil the Triple A role through a variety of means including board briefings, Good Practice Guides, webinars, training programmes and working internally with individual businesses.

Business never stands still and the issues confronting businesses that want to behave ethically, continue to expand. In the coming months, therefore, we will be paying particular attention, for example, to the issues of using Artificial Intelligence ethically and safely; and how young people think about what it means to do business ethically.

All of this is why the board and executive team of IBE are so clear that the need for an organisation like the IBE is even more relevant today that when we were founded almost

forty years ago. I would also argue that we are a perfect “Yin” to the “Yang” of the ten specific commitment areas of the Good Business Charter. Uniting the work of both the IBE and GBC is a sense of fairness, of treating others fairly.

David Grayson is chair of the Institute of Business Ethics.

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7th February, 2024

The Good Business Foundation announced today in its inaugural Good Business Week that it had reaccredited business group the Confederation of British Industry (CBI). 

Good Business Charter accreditation represents a high bar of responsible business behaviour, held by companies including Aviva, TSB, St James’ Place and Richer Sounds. Following the allegations in Spring 2023 of sexual misconduct and harassment, the Good Business Foundation (the charity that runs the Good Business Charter) suspended the CBI’s accreditation because of concerns specifically around its commitments to employee wellbeing and employee representation. 

The CBI was a founder of the GBC when it was launched in 2020 and helped develop its 10 components. Following rigorous assessment, its GBC accreditation was reinstated with the team satisfied that the business group has put robust measures in place. The GBC team particularly applauded the CBI’s decision to have the Chief People Officer report directly to the Board and be on the Executive Committee. This is a really effective way for any business to help ensure the voices of their whole workforce are heard. 

Julian Richer, founder of the GBC and champion of responsible business commented: 

‘The CBI’s experience shows that true commitment to responsible business takes time and resources but is so worth the effort. We all have areas to improve but we have been impressed with the scale and depth of the CBI’s efforts to improve its workplace culture including clear benchmarking and ongoing monitoring of how employees are feeling.’ 

Rain Newton-Smith, CBI Chief Executive said:

“We are incredibly pleased to have earned reaccreditation and encourage other companies to make this commitment to responsible business. It’s important to me that everybody feels proud of being part of the CBI and working together to co-create our values of integrity, respect, courage and brilliance has been an empowering experience. Working with experts we have strengthened our culture and improved our training and processes, bringing in measures to ensure that employees’ voices are heard and acted on. And while today we celebrate this achievement, I also recognise that building a better organisation is an ongoing journey, requiring constant review and evaluation so as not to allow complacency to set in.” 

The GBC is taking this week to celebrate good business, focusing different days on some of the key issues such as fair pay, prompt payment to suppliers and employee wellbeing. 

CEO of the charity and campaign, Jenny Herrera, said: 

‘We believe there should be a clear benchmark of what responsible business behaviour looks like so that customers, employees, investors and other stakeholders can differentiate between good and bad. It’s time we all took a stand against companies dodging taxes, trampling over people and wrecking the planet. In Good Business Week we encourage everyone to share their stories of why #GoodBusinessMatters’ 

ENDS 

Notes for Editors 

About the Good Business Charter 

The Good Business Charter was developed, and is overseen by, the Good Business Foundation, an independent charity established in 2019 by entrepreneur Julian Richer. 

The Charter is a simple accreditation which organisations in the UK can sign up to in recognition of responsible business practices. It measures behaviour over ten components (nine for charities and public sector): real living wage; fairer hours and contracts; employee well-being; employee representation; equality, diversity and inclusion; environmental responsibility; paying fair tax; commitment to customers; ethical sourcing, and prompt payment.  

An organisation must meet all ten components (nine for charities and public sector) to receive GBC accreditation. It is open to private sector, public sector and charities of all sizes including a streamlined version for organisations with 50 employees or fewer. 

The Good Business Charter is an initiative of the Good Business Foundation, charity number 1186547, company number 12278437. 

Contact:  Jenny Herrera, CEO | jherrera@goodbusinesscharter.com | 07703 453826 

Website: www.goodbusinesscharter.com 

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