Streamlined membership for small organisations
The Good Business Foundation has partnered with Federation of Small Businesses to adapt our accreditation to work for our smaller members, which make up over 99.3% of all businesses. We recognise that once you grow to more than 50 employees you are likely to develop a layer/s of middle management and the business becomes more complex which is why our original questions sought to encompass this. For the Good Business Charter accreditation to work for businesses with 50 employees or less FSB strongly felt it needed to be made more accessible, streamlined and small-business-friendly.
We are grateful to Craig Beaumont, Samantha Bonser and Martin McTague at FSB for their commitment to the GBC and assistance in designing this part of our accreditation. We are delighted with the result which we believe asks the right questions for each of our components to this important audience. Of particular note, FSB has asked that small businesses who sign up as a good business in this way, also commit to good payment practice to suppliers – paying them within at most 30 days. This matches the welcome and stronger requirements in the Prompt Payment Code.
Further to the first year of free membership we have also agreed a flat rate of £25 per annum per organisation for these smaller organisations.
Self-certification
Do not delay! To sign up, please click here: https://accreditation.goodbusinesscharter.com/login to register and complete the online process. It is quick and simple.
The questions you will be asked are here for your reference:
Living Wage
- Do you pay your directly employed and regularly contracted staff the real living wage as defined by the Living Wage Foundation or have plans to work toward that goal?
Fairer hours and contracts
- Do you only offer or use zero or minimal hours contracts when it is mutually beneficial and accepted by both you and the employee?
Employee wellbeing
- Do you actively support and encourage employee well-being treating those with legitimate sickness in a fair and respectful manner and promote access to impartial support and advice for employees with physical and mental health needs (this can include signposting to NHS services or charities)?
Employee representation
- Is there a way where every employee can make suggestions or raise issues with senior management? (If you recognise a trade union, do you commit to regular engagement?)
Diversity and inclusion
- Do you put robust measures in place to encourage diversity at key stages of recruitment, selection and retention of employees? And have you put in place robust measures to prevent harassment or victimisation in the workplace with access to independent third-party support if necessary?
Environmental responsibility
- Do you encourage the development of good environmental and net zero practice as an organisation and by your employees, suppliers and customers, seeking to minimise your impact and commit to improve it, depending on the size, sector and relevance of your organisation?
Pay fair tax
- Do you commit to pay your taxes where applicable, only use tax allowances for the purpose intended, and be transparent in your relationship with HMRC, providing all relevant information and to cooperate in resolving any disputes?
Commitment to customers
- Do you have a clear commitment to customers and prioritise addressing and learning from customer feedback, seeking to put negative issues right?
Ethical sourcing
- Do you commit to ethical sourcing of anything you purchase – such as by applying standards set out in the Ethical Trading Initiative Base Code where relevant?
Prompt payment
- Are you committed to paying your suppliers promptly, and within at least 30 days?
Public and Third Sector
Public and third sector organisations with less than 50 employees will answer an adapted version of the FSB streamlined questions, removing the tax component since it is not relevant and changing the wording of the customer commitment to stakeholders to encompass beneficiaries and donors.
The Good Business Charter also commits organisations to display the GBC logo in a prominent, permanent place on their website and promote it internally and externally. This commitment to ensure their workforce and wider stakeholders know about the commitments they have made is a requirement of fully completing their accreditation.
Small Businesses with a High Level of Temporary Staff
Where an organisation’s core team is small, and well within the 50 employees limit for the streamlined GBC accreditation, but the nature of their business means they have a high number of temporary or occasional workers that takes them above 50 employees, our position is:
- The organisation should use the number of non-event staff when registering with our portal and therefore answer the streamlined questions
- The organisation should contact us or add in the comments how many additional people work for them and are on their PAYE – including casual, seasonal and temporary workers.
- Our first 5 components MUST be applied to the total number of all workers, not just the core, permanent team. So they must be paid real living wage, have fair contracts, experience employee wellbeing, representation and diversity and inclusion. This may be worked out in different ways for different groups of workers as befits the situation, but the GBC components must be applied to all.
The rationale for this position is that the questions for larger companies include pay gap reporting and extensive reference to reporting to a Board of Directors, which does not fit the nature of an organisation such as this.
Rejection policy
We reserve the right to reject an application if we feel that an organisation does not work at the standard of the Good Business Charter for one or more of our 10 components. You can view our protocol on rejecting organisations here.
If you have any questions regarding GBC accreditation, please do contact us.
See also www.fsb.org.uk/gbc
Good Business Charter
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Our 10 components
Find out more about the ideals that make up the cornerstone of the Good Business Charter.
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Whistle-Blowing
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If you have reason to believe that a GBC accredited organisation is not meeting its obligations, please let us know.