CUH are thrilled and incredibly honoured to be awarded the Employer Recognition Scheme Gold Award. This achievement highlights our commitment to supporting serving personnel, reservists, veterans, and military families, honouring the value that they bring to our organisation. It is our privilege to be able to offer opportunities for development and growth to those that have served our country. We are committed to and will continue in our efforts in championing the value and skills that this community brings to our organisation.
The scheme encompasses bronze, silver and gold awards for employer organisations that pledge, demonstrate or advocate support to defence and the Armed forces community, and align their values with the armed forces covenant (opens in a new tab).
We recognise the value serving personnel, reservists, veterans and military families bring to our organisation.
As a signatory to the covenant we:
- Promote the fact we are an armed forces friendly organisation.
- Strive to support the employment of service spouses and partners.
- Seek to support our employees who choose to be members of the reserve forces, including by accommodating their training and deployment where possible.
Gold award holders
Gold award holders in addition to Silver Criteria must have:
- held it with sufficient time to have put in place the necessary essential policies and evidence to support their application. It would be very unusual for an organisation to achieve Gold status within 12 months of gaining Silver.
- Be an exemplar within their sector, advocating for the AFC and or ERS to partner organisations, suppliers and customers with tangible positive results. E.g. demonstrate proactive steps/activity and clear success in encouraging partner organisations and their supply chain to engage with and sign the AFC, and or mentor others in progressing through the ERS.
- Actively encourage a positive workplace environment for Active Reservists (Part Time Volunteer Reserves) by ensuring that positive policies in support of Reservists within the workforce are communicated to line managers and support their training by providing at least 10 days additional paid leave annually.
- Demonstrate support to the Cadet movement by committing resources to improving the outcomes for cadets. This is to be achieved by verifying they deliver one or a combination of the following through official Cadet Force channels:
1) Sponsorship (e.g. for additional resources, competitions, events and specific activities such as overseas expeditions);
2) Supporting the development of cadets’ wider skills to enhance their future opportunities;
3) Providing employment advice and guidance.
- Promote volunteering with the Cadet Forces by having policies in place that cater to offer additional paid or unpaid leave to employees who are Cadet Force Adult Volunteers.
- Engaged with CTP to support recruitment of Service leavers and have registered with the Forces Families Jobs website.
Desirable Criteria. Factors which add value to an application. Note that the description of these allows for an assessment of evidence in the context of the scale, business model and market sector of the employer. The employer is willing to consider:
- Support to Reserve Service and the wider Armed Forces community through internal and external communications, amplifying DRM social media messaging around Armed Forces Week, Reserves Day, ERS Gold /Silver announcements etc.
- Actively finding out the numbers of Reservists employed and have a declared target for the number of Reservists within their workforce. Ideally, they will have relationships with the relevant Unit Employment Support Officers (UESO) for reserve units in their local area.
- If there are Reservists within the workforce, the employer has positively engaged with them on how the company would support their mobilisation.
- Host a Reserve recruiting event on their premises in partnership with a Reserve Unit or Military Command Recruiting Teams.
- Where scale and business models permit, the employer should actively encourage and support an internal Armed Forces community network within their organisation.
Please see Gov.uk for further information (opens in a new tab).
