How we are supporting the Armed Forces…

We were really proud to sign the Armed Forces Covenant last year. ESS, our defence business, had been a signatory for a number of years, but it was important to us that we made the commitment across our company.

We wanted to ensure that when signing the Covenant we made deliverable pledges that supported the armed forces community. Over the past 12 months we have worked hard to start enacting these pledges:

promote to employees within Compass Group that it is an armed forces-friendly organisation
seek to support the employment of veterans young and old as well as the Wounded, Injured and Sick (WIS) by working with the Career Transition Partnership (CTP), in order to establish a tailored employment pathway for Service Leavers into Compass Group business units
striving to support our employees who choose to be members of the Reserve forces by empowering line managers to provide an additional 10 days paid leave; to support their training and deployment
Support the Armed Forces Employability Pathways (AFEP
Provide a degree of flexibility in granting leave for service spouses and partners, during and after deployment.
actively participate in relevant events e.g. Armed Forces Day and Reserves Day
maintain the company’s working relationships and fund raising initiatives with the major forces charity SSAFA Continue to support and engage with Service spouses, partners and families by offering flexible employment and career opportunities.

As a business of 60,000 employees, you obviously don’t get to meet everyone! However, as a result of the Covenant it’s been great to meet many new colleagues who have armed forces connections and we are still continuing to be contacted by reservist colleagues as they learn what support is available to them.

For Armed Forces Week we have events taking place across a number of our sites where we work and we are looking forward to standing in solidarity with the Armed Forces Community throughout the week.

If you are interested in coming to work for us at Compass, please get in touch with our recruitment team.

If you are a colleague who feels the Covenant is relevant to them and wants to find out more about the support available, then please speak to your line manager.