Our Fair Work Statement

Corbenic’s Fair Work Statement

This statement confirms Corbenic’s commitment to fair working practices in support of the Scottish Government’s ‘Fair Work First’ policy.

Fair treatment of residents, day participants, staff and volunteers in Corbenic and associated policies are underpinned by the values and aims of the organisation, in particular – “To be a welcoming, genuine, and intentional community where members are treated fairly, equally, listened to, and empowered, and where diversity is celebrated.”

Fair Work First is the Scottish Government's flagship policy for driving high quality, inclusive, and fair work across the labour market by applying fair work criteria to grants, other funding, and contracts, where relevant to do so. The Scottish Government is encouraging employers to adopt fair work practices, specifically:

Payment of at least the real Living Wage
Providing appropriate channels for effective workers' voice, such as trade union recognition
Investment in workforce development
No inappropriate use of zero hours contracts
Action to tackle the gender pay gap and to create a more diverse and inclusive workplace
Offer flexible and family friendly working practices for all workers from day one of employment
Opposing the use of fire and rehire practices

Our Commitment

Corbenic demonstrates our commitment to fair work in the following ways:

Real Living Wage

Corbenic voluntarily pays all employees more per hour than the rate set by the Living Wage Foundation, and we are committed to continuing to provide this. We are participating in job evaluation and salary benchmarking within the sector both internally and externally to ensure we offer competitive and fair pay rates.

Pay levels are reviewed annually, with inflationary uplifts applied at the start of each financial year. The rate is consciously set at a level which ensures Corbenic continues to pay all staff more than the real living wage.

Employee Voice

Corbenic has individual and collective voice channels to listen to and engage with employees and demonstrate that each voice matters. We have well established forums to engage with employees. Corbenic understands the importance of providing a safe channel for our employees to share their thoughts, opinions or challenges.

At an individual level, managers are encouraged to have regular one-to-ones with employees, and this practice has been widely adopted across Corbenic. The opportunity to have one-to-one discussions exists outside of the performance and development review process, which fosters effective working relationships. We have an open door policy with leaders across the organisation.

Employees’ surveys are regularly used to gain further insight as are working groups. We introduced a Stay Interview in early 2025 and are working towards action plans for improvement which came from the survey. As a result of this we are creating a Working Group with a range of employees at different levels and from different areas of the charity. We will continue to run short pulse surveys and a longer Survey on a cyclical basis to work together as an organisation to make improvements in Corbenic.

Weekly team meetings feed into the process. Recorded team meetings are conducted weekly in each house and include staff, volunteers and service users, with actions recorded and reviewed. There are also weekly House Coordinator and Workshop Leader meetings

Corbenic has in house training and robust procedures and support mechanisms in place to support employees in the workplace and has zero tolerance of bullying and other forms of abuse and harassment.

Workforce Development

One of the key aims of the Workforce Strategy is for all employees to have the opportunity to develop personally and professionally to support individual and organisational achievement. We aspire to ensure that all employees have time at work to develop the skills they need for the work they do. Corbenic currently provides a number of resources on a learning management system to enable employees to maximise their potential, and will continue to develop its offering in the future.

In addition to support and supervision, we run an annual appraisal system. At the quarterly support and supervision sessions training and development needs are explored and appropriate training and development activity is put in place to support growth and development for current and future career goals. We provide a significant and ongoing training calendar for all employees.

People Strategy

Zero Hour Contracts

Any employees who are on a zero hour contract have this arrangement by their choice, preferring the flexibility that it offers. Zero hours employees are alerted to permanent vacancies as and when they arise and encouraged to apply.

Equality and Inclusivity

Corbenic’s Equality and Inclusivity policies aim to embed equality, diversity and inclusion across all of our work, and seek to promote a culture of inclusivity. Again, this is something embedded into the ethos and values of the organisation, being a place “where diversity is celebrated”.

Action to tackle the gender pay gap and create a more diverse and inclusive workplace

Corbenic’s Gender Pay Gap statistics are reported to the Board of Trustees at all meetings. This is monitored and the factors impacting it are considered. We do not have a gender pay gap within comparable roles but we do have a gender pay gap across the workforce on average due to more males fulfilling senior roles. To combat this we will actively monitor recruitment to ensure a good gender balance in Corbenic internally and externally. We will look at the percentage of women in each role who:

apply for promotion
make it through to any assessment stage or shortlist
are selected for promotion

and use this to create an action plan to:

Include more than one woman in shortlists for recruitment and promotions
Include more than one woman in creating a shortlist of qualified candidates.
Use skills-based assessment tasks in recruitment
Standardise the tasks and scoring system to make sure we treat all candidates fairly.
Use structured interviews that ask exactly the same questions of all candidates in a predetermined order and format.
Grade the responses using standardised criteria that we agree beforehand. This makes the responses comparable and reduces the impact of unconscious bias.
Have diverse selection panels
Widen our potential applicant pool
Rethink structural issues that can prevent women from doing particular jobs. For example, do our jobs allow flexible working so that people with caring responsibilities can do them? Can we help more women to get the required qualifications internally?

Family Friendly Policies

We have enhanced terms and pay for maternity, paternity and adoption. We have Flexible Working, Emergency Time Off for Dependants, and Bereavement leave to allow employees to balance their personal and work commitments.

We have achieved the status of Disability Confident Leader of the Disability Confident scheme, and we are working to become a Carer Positive employer. We have a long-standing Women’s Health policy. The mental health and wellbeing of our employees is incredibly important. Corbenic employees have access to six Mental Health First Aiders. Reasonable adjustments are made to support disabled employees or those with long-term health conditions.

Corbenic has a Hybrid Working Policy where possible and routinely agrees flexible and family friendly working practices during the recruitment process.

Employees have the opportunity to buy more annual leave if they feel this would benefit them.

Opposing Fire and Rehire Practices

Corbenic opposes, and does not engage in, ‘fire and rehire’ practices.

Agreed 7th July 2025

Corbenic Camphill Community