Our social purpose

People are the heart of what we do, and it goes without saying that a strong social purpose underpins our business journey. We’re in a unique and privileged position to make a difference, sharing our skills and knowledge with the world of work, and giving our time on a voluntary basis to help improve opportunities for others.

Every year, Hays’ employees are given 16 hours of paid volunteering time as part of our ‘Helping for your tomorrow’ initiative; a wider commitment to improving employability and supporting the local communities and environments we’re so closely tied to. We took this initiative further with our ‘Hays Gets Neighbourly’ campaign in 2023, extending our people’s positive influence across local communities. Our employees donated their time and skills across 282 volunteer events spanning the UK, totalling a remarkable 9,266 hours. This had a huge impact, helping over 85,000 people to whom the charities and good causes provide local services.

We decided to get Neighbourly again in 2024, linking up with local causes and communities up and down the UK in a two-phase campaign. From assisting tree planting projects and food centres to visiting schools and offering valuable career advice, we provided support for those who needed it most, while reconnecting our people with society.

Celebrating our people and their success

Without our team of dedicated, high performing individuals, our business wouldn’t work. To show just how much we appreciate our people, we celebrate their achievements as if they are our own. We reward anniversaries, and the longer you stay with us, the more loyalty leave you’ll accrue. There are even generous referral bonuses when you introduce likeminded individuals to the business, and we have a share saving investment opportunity so you can be part of our continuous journey towards sustainable success.

We make of point of celebrating our success, because without our people we wouldn’t be the business we are today – and rewarding great performance is the cornerstone of life at Hays. Our internal recognition programs, rewards for high performers and personal bests, and local and national incentives, are just some of the ways we honour your hard work. 

Outside the office, you can expect a vibrant social scene. With team lunches, end of year celebrations and luxury 5* trips overseas, we make sure that success is recognised across our business, whilst you get to know your colleagues along the way.

Committing to a better world

To our people, the world we live in is important, and our commitment to ensuring we are positively impacting our communities means we are committed to a journey of net zero carbon. In this, we are pursuing a best practice approach to climate action which involves keeping pace with the evolving definitions and guidance. Our approach is to primarily focus on our near-term targets, which we have approved through the Science Based Targets Initiative. As we have done with these near-term targets, we expect to explore and set Net Zero targets with an aspiration to achieve net zero by 2050, as part of next steps and with a plan for action.

As part of our commitment to a net zero future, we’ve launched multiple initiatives to cut greenhouse gas emissions in pursuit of our reduction targets. We’ve pledged to halve scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas emissions by 2026, and scope 3 emissions by 2030 (with 2020 as a base year), with these commitments being approved by the Science Based Targets initiative last year.