Ashtead is committed to maintaining the highest standards of corporate responsibility across all of its businesses. We place a high priority on compliance with all legislative and regulatory requirements, and on the maintenance of high ethical standards, across the Group. We seek continually to improve our performance in terms of employee development and health and safety in particular, as without the highest standards in these areas, our business model simply would not work.
Our employees are our greatest asset and we place enormous value on the welfare and commitment of our employees as well as the superior level of service they provide for our customers. Our employees all benefit from extensive on the job training schemes and are highly incentivised to deliver superior standards of work and customer service. We pride ourselves on many of our staff remaining with us throughout their careers, something which is increasingly uncommon in the commercial world. Many of our most senior staff started out at entry level within our profit centres and their continuity of employment is testament to the Group’s focus on employee development throughout their careers. We are committed to ensuring equal opportunities for all our staff.
In all our markets we have extensive programmes to develop and maintain the highest standards of health and safety for both our employees and our customers. We make a considerable annual investment in ensuring that every piece of equipment meets or exceeds the latest safety standards. We also employ an internal health and safety audit team to ensure that the correct health and safety precautions are in place throughout every aspect of our business. Education is key to improving safety standards across the industries that we serve. We are at the forefront of the drive to promote higher standards and to educate our customers about new and improved methods of ensuring all employees operate in a safe environment.
Ashtead is committed to minimising any risk or negative impact our business may have on the environment. During the course of our business, we impact the environment principally through the disposal of waste oils, lubricants and through fuel emissions, as well as through the disposal of effluent. Across our territories, our operating philosophy involves a commitment to:
We set out to apply a ‘Customer First’ culture and aim to build partnerships to enable our customers to do more, more effectively, over the long term. We try to put our customers’ needs first in everything, from concept and planning through to delivery and post-contract, and offer a range of benefits such as our pioneering extranet facility giving customers on-line real-time account tracking. We have a national account management function in both the US and UK and offer preferred or sole supplier agreements, whereby customers can reduce their equipment supplier bases with bespoke arrangements that can provide significant savings in time and money as well as enhancing safety. In addition, we invest heavily in new equipment, selecting only brand leaders as suppliers, building long-term relationships with them to ensure we offer the very latest and highest quality equipment.
We recognise the importance of giving back to the communities where we do business. We have a number of community programmes across both the US and the UK as well as individual initiatives at a number of our profit centres.
