CAS makes Scottish Business Pledge
CAS has signed the Scottish Business Pledge, a government and business partnership that champions fair employment practices and sustainable business growth. Making the pledge was a logical, easy step for us as we have been operating under most of the shared values for some time.
CAS (Computer Application Services Ltd.) has always strived to be a responsible corporate citizen. From paying fair wages and ensuring we pay suppliers on time, to involvement in initiatives to encourage young people and women into IT careers, we seek to “treat others as we wish to be treated”.
We believe all elements within the pledge are to be embraced and promoted, because these aspects make for good business in the modern world.
CAS moved to employee ownership in 2014. When asked about the benefits of employee ownership we always say that, first and foremost, an employee owned business needs to be a good business. A nice place to work, interesting projects and respectful environment are all great attributes, but the business also needs to be sustainable. Many of the pledge values have already been key contributing factors to our success.
Big areas for us are around respectful treatment of people, especially our own. We believe it is good business to encourage engagement – hearts and minds really does take things to a higher level.
Read more about the Scottish Business Pledge values here
A practical example is how our team worked out how best to serve the growing need for out of hours working. Some UK customers who rely on our Workpro case management software (e.g. for managing complaints or for employee relations casework) can’t have maintenance work done during working hours. Our push to win more overseas customers also means that “out of hours” becomes blurred as 9pm here in the UK is still core time in USA where a new client is about to come on board – a Nuclear power station using Workpro to track and resolve non-conformances in approved ways of working. Team members instigated cross-skills training and a workable rota that provides sterling service while ensuring adequate time off, without racking up overtime costs and burning people out.
Gender balance has traditionally been an issue in our industry but that is changing, albeit too slowly given the severe skills shortage in the IT industry in Scotland. Our strategy is to “grow candidates”, hence we support local school and university communities – for example every summer we offer a paid placement to a female STEM student through the excellent Careerwise initiative run by Equate Scotland. We also support CodeClan, the Digital Skills Academy based in Edinburgh – two staff members came to us via this route, one of whom we are now supporting through a software engineering degree via the Graduate Apprenticeship scheme at Heriot Watt University.
CAS and the CAStodians are proud to engage in the Scottish Business Pledge. For us this is not just another badge, the pledges build on work already done to invest in our people, the wider community and business development overseas.