Personnel Today
  • Home
    • All PT content
  • Email sign-up
  • Topics
    • HR Practice
    • Employee relations
    • Learning & training
    • Pay & benefits
    • Wellbeing
    • Recruitment & retention
    • HR strategy
    • HR Tech
    • The HR profession
    • Global
    • All HR topics
  • Legal
    • Case law
    • Commentary
    • Flexible working
    • Legal timetable
    • Maternity & paternity
    • Shared parental leave
    • Redundancy
    • TUPE
    • Disciplinary and grievances
    • Employer’s guides
  • AWARDS
    • Personnel Today Awards
    • The RAD Awards
  • Jobs
    • Find a job
    • Jobs by email
    • Careers advice
    • Post a job
  • Brightmine
    • Learn more
    • Products
    • Free trial
    • Request a quote
  • Webinars
  • Advertise
  • OHW+

Personnel Today

Register
Log in
Personnel Today
  • Home
    • All PT content
  • Email sign-up
  • Topics
    • HR Practice
    • Employee relations
    • Learning & training
    • Pay & benefits
    • Wellbeing
    • Recruitment & retention
    • HR strategy
    • HR Tech
    • The HR profession
    • Global
    • All HR topics
  • Legal
    • Case law
    • Commentary
    • Flexible working
    • Legal timetable
    • Maternity & paternity
    • Shared parental leave
    • Redundancy
    • TUPE
    • Disciplinary and grievances
    • Employer’s guides
  • AWARDS
    • Personnel Today Awards
    • The RAD Awards
  • Jobs
    • Find a job
    • Jobs by email
    • Careers advice
    • Post a job
  • Brightmine
    • Learn more
    • Products
    • Free trial
    • Request a quote
  • Webinars
  • Advertise
  • OHW+

Corporate governanceClimate emergencyLatest NewsESG

FTSE 100 firms overlooking staff poverty

by Ashleigh Webber 24 Jan 2022
by Ashleigh Webber 24 Jan 2022 Shutterstock
Shutterstock

The UK’s largest firms are overlooking poverty among their workforce, supply chain and communities, according to analysis of FTSE 100 companies’ ESG (environmental, social and governance) statements.

Public policy think-tank The Social Market Foundation has found that FTSE 100 organisations are 64 times more likely to address environmental issues than to discuss poverty in statements highlighting their ESG work.

Keyword analysis of the statements found that firms were largely ignoring the ‘S’ in ESG; the word “governance” appears 176 times in the average ESG annual report, “environment” appears 64 times; and “poverty” is mentioned only once.

Words associated with firms’ plans to help tackle climate change – including “sustainability”, “environment”, “climate”, and “environmental” – are found to occur frequently, according to the Capital concerns report.

Across the 100 reports analysed, “poverty” is mentioned 101 times, while “governance” is used 17,600 times.

Fifty-three FTSE 100 firms made no mention of poverty in their reports, even though all had committed to tackling ESG issues.

In-work poverty

Part-time, low-paid and ethnic minority workers facing poverty

CIPD: Improve financial wellbeing for staff hit by pay challenges

An estimated 8.5 million working-age adults and 4.5 million children were in poverty in the UK before the Covid-19 pandemic, according to the report. More than 600,000 working adults are expected to have fallen below the poverty line in 2020 and 2021.

The SMF, which carried out the research in partnership with grant-giving body Trust for London, urged businesses to pay more attention to poverty among their workforce, supply chain, and communities.

SMF director James Kirkup said: “Companies that want to do good should start by ensuring their own people aren’t living in poverty.

“If companies are seen to promise to do good but won’t address something as fundamental as poverty among their workers, suppliers and neighbours, the public and those who invest their money will start to wonder if ESG really means anything and lose trust in business.

“Ignoring the S in ESG could be very expensive indeed.”

Manny Hothi, chief executive at Trust for London, said: “Businesses play an important role in tackling poverty in London, especially when we look at the ongoing increases of in-work poverty.

“It’s disappointing that many companies do not yet see poverty as part of the responsible business agenda. We want to see all businesses in London taking action to tackle poverty, and a natural starting point is by becoming accredited as a Living Wage employer.”

The report finds that tackling ESG issues is important to London-based large employers; 97% of larger businesses in the capital say that ESG issues are “important” to them.

Six in 10 large London employers that say ESG is “important” report that environment is a “focus of their current ESG efforts”, while 26% report prioritising in-work poverty in their own workforce.

The report suggests that businesses are not focusing on in-work poverty because there are no immediate incentives to encourage interest in it, and the potential longer-term commercial benefits of addressing poverty “have not always been clear and widely understood”.

Sign up to our weekly round-up of HR news and guidance

Receive the Personnel Today Direct e-newsletter every Wednesday

OptOut
This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

The SMF was considering how it could design a new poverty benchmark that would enable businesses to demonstrate what measures they are taking to help reduce staff poverty.

HR Director opportunities on Personnel Today


Browse more HR director jobs

Ashleigh Webber

Ashleigh is a former editor of OHW+ and former HR and wellbeing editor at Personnel Today. Ashleigh's areas of interest include employee health and wellbeing, equality and inclusion and skills development. She has hosted many webinars for Personnel Today, on topics including employee retention, financial wellbeing and menopause support.

previous post
Campaigners reveal ‘glacial’ pace of change in women’s status
next post
Workplace return will boost mental health, say third of employees

You may also like

Barclays and NatWest remove climate targets from bonus...

18 Feb 2025

Aviva apprenticeships: ‘When you invest in people, they...

10 Feb 2025

Gartner’s nine HR predictions for 2025

16 Jan 2025

Executive pay plans in Europe increasingly linked to...

16 Dec 2024

Shein dealt with two child labour cases last...

23 Aug 2024

Salary sacrifice car schemes: A guide for employers

16 Aug 2024

EV salary sacrifice example: How ScottishPower plugs its...

12 Aug 2024

How electric vehicle salary sacrifice helps achieve ESG...

12 Aug 2024

Increase in sustainability questions in job interviews

12 Jul 2024

Investors pressure Amazon on union membership practices

5 Jun 2024

  • 2025 Employee Communications Report PROMOTED | HR and leadership...Read more
  • The Majority of Employees Have Their Eyes on Their Next Move PROMOTED | A staggering 65%...Read more
  • Prioritising performance management: Strategies for success (webinar) WEBINAR | In today’s fast-paced...Read more
  • Self-Leadership: The Key to Successful Organisations PROMOTED | Eletive is helping businesses...Read more
  • Retaining Female Talent: Four Ways to Reduce Workplace Drop Out PROMOTED | International Women’s Day...Read more

Personnel Today Jobs
 

Search Jobs

PERSONNEL TODAY

About us
Contact us
Browse all HR topics
Email newsletters
Content feeds
Cookies policy
Privacy policy
Terms and conditions

JOBS

Personnel Today Jobs
Post a job
Why advertise with us?

EVENTS & PRODUCTS

The Personnel Today Awards
The RAD Awards
Employee Benefits
Forum for Expatriate Management
OHW+
Whatmedia

ADVERTISING & PR

Advertising opportunities
Features list 2025

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • Linkedin


© 2011 - 2025 DVV Media International Ltd

Personnel Today
  • Home
    • All PT content
  • Email sign-up
  • Topics
    • HR Practice
    • Employee relations
    • Learning & training
    • Pay & benefits
    • Wellbeing
    • Recruitment & retention
    • HR strategy
    • HR Tech
    • The HR profession
    • Global
    • All HR topics
  • Legal
    • Case law
    • Commentary
    • Flexible working
    • Legal timetable
    • Maternity & paternity
    • Shared parental leave
    • Redundancy
    • TUPE
    • Disciplinary and grievances
    • Employer’s guides
  • AWARDS
    • Personnel Today Awards
    • The RAD Awards
  • Jobs
    • Find a job
    • Jobs by email
    • Careers advice
    • Post a job
  • Brightmine
    • Learn more
    • Products
    • Free trial
    • Request a quote
  • Webinars
  • Advertise
  • OHW+