TP Transcription Limited and University Transcriptions Social Responsibility Policy

Foreword

We often get asked by university procurement teams to outline our social and corporate responsibility policy as they like to see suppliers who put something back into society. Whilst we are always happy to do this and to be modest about what we do, sometimes we do feel that a company of our size (and other similar-minded companies) do a comparatively large amount in relation to multinational plc’s.

The TP Transcription Social Responsibility Policy has four categories, which are based on an academic theory known as ‘Carroll’s Pyramid“:

Carroll’s Pyramid

Environmental: reducing pollution, increasing use of renewable energy, and offsetting any negative impacts.
Ethical: ensuring fair treatment for all parties including employees and clients. Examples would be the responsible sourcing of materials and creating an equitable work environment.
Philanthropic: donating a portion of earnings to charitable giving.
Economic: linking financial decisions to a company’s commitment to do good things.

UN Global Compact

In addition to this, we abide by the ten principles of the UN Global Compact, which are as follows:

Principle 1: We support and respect the protection of internationally proclaimed human rights;
Principle 2: We strive to make sure we are not complicit in human rights abuses.
Principle 3: We uphold the freedom of association and the effective recognition of the right to collective bargaining;
Principle 4: We support the elimination of all forms of forced and compulsory labour;
Principle 5: We support the abolition of child labour; and
Principle 6: We strive towards the elimination of discrimination in respect of employment and occupation.
Principle 7: We support a precautionary approach to environmental challenges;
Principle 8: We undertake initiatives to promote greater environmental responsibility;
Principle 9: We encourage the development and diffusion of environmentally friendly technologies.
Principle 10: We work against corruption in all its forms, including extortion and bribery.

Philanthropic Principles

A cornerstone of our social responsibility is our philanthropy, Since we started in business 20 plus years ago we have donated 10% of our profits to charity every year without fail, via the Ten Percent Foundation, which is a charitable trust run by our group of companies with an external trustee as well. We do not charge anything for administering the fund and incur no administrative costs other than the bank charges that Triodos Bank (an ethical choice!) impose on us, which are usually a pittance. Every year our trustees meet to decide which charities and organisations to donate money to in accordance with a set of criteria and this is following requests to our clients, our customers and our staff and transcribers as to who to donate to in accordance with our strict criteria.

To give you an idea as to the sorts of amounts we donate, in the last 12 months we have donated over £20,000 to charity. However, just donating money to charity does not cover the whole of our social responsibility policy in this area.

Enivronmentally Friendly

Not so relevant due to our size, but we are a paperless office and have an accredited ISO14001 environmental management system in place. We have fully electric company cars where they are available to our staff. Our Denbigh office has all of its electricity derived from solar panels on the roof and also 100% renewable energy when the sun isn’t shining in North Wales (very rare of course!). We use limited electricity for the operation of our business – our computers and laptops are set on low energy levels wherever possible, we have insulated walls in our offices and we use low energy light bulbs where we can, and we try to recycle everything wherever possible, including our I.T. and electrical equipment when it gets to end of life.

Ethical Principles

We adhere to paying the real living wage and we are members of the Living Wage Foundation. Our rates for our salaried staff are always above the real living wage and our rates for our contracted transcribers are also set to ensure that they are comparably above the living wage. We believe passionately in good staff conditions and so we afford all our employees and contractors flexible hours so that work does not get in the way of life and vice versa.

We have taken on board the recommendations of an academic study back in 2022 and we are very sympathetic and supportive of transcribers in relation to triggering subjects. As you may or may not be aware, but transcribers often are exposed to some quite unpleasant and harrowing recordings, some of which may be very personal to them, and as such we always have a policy that if a transcriber is notified of any particular content and decides they don’t wish to process that work, then we will pass it on to someone else.

In our efforts to be ethically responsible, we try to source services and goods from ethical sources and shop locally wherever possible. Our IT consultants are based about 5 miles from our offices, we use a communication provider within 50 miles and we purchase our stationery from a local shop.

Economic Principles

Always difficult to achieve in practice, as we are here at the end of the day to generate turnover and make a profit. However we think about the effects of our work on society, we turn down clients if we don’t like what they stand for and our decisions on hourly rates for clients and transcribers are based on our efforts to be as fair as possible to all.

Social Responsibility – who exactly?

Quite a lot of companies advertise their corporate and social responsibility policy by demonstrating that members of staff go out into the community to volunteer on community projects or hold fund raising events. They also talk about contributions their offices or stores have made to charity, but rarely do they point out that actually the money that gets raised by those events is actually coming from the public, customers & staff, and often not from the companies themselves.

We encourage our staff to have voluntary interests and to take time out from their working life in order to pursue and run these. One of our directors helps to run a trampolining club for disabled children in North Wales and the other one is a volunteer football coach, as well as a trustee of a girls football club charity, promoting the sport to encourage participation at all levels. Our transcribers have a range of interests, from helping to run a food bank through to being a trustee of a small local charity.

Summary

TP Transcription Limited takes its role in society very seriously and is not just in existence to generate as much money as we can. We are passionate believers that business needs to be answerable to the community it serves as well as putting something back at all times as well as taking benefits.

If you would like a chat about our various corporate and social responsibilities, please get in touch with one of our directors as we would be delighted to have a conversation, particularly if you can suggest any ways of improving our policy and developing it further.