Delivering our customers’ mail reliably is both our service obligation and our social responsibility. We recognise that much of what our customers entrust to us is priority business mail to which they attach the greatest importance. They have the right to expect the highest standards of security and integrity throughout the period it is in our care. For years, the Document Exchange has enabled critical legal documents to be delivered promptly and securely, even when other mail has stopped moving due to industrial disputes.

We are one of the few companies in the mail sector to provide our customers with a call centre dedicated to delivering high levels of customer service. Accessible either by phone or via the web, a team of specialists is trained to provide solutions to customer enquiries.

We employ a culturally diverse workforce drawn from and representative of the local population in the areas where we operate. We recruit purely upon the ability of the person to do the role available and enjoy high staff retention, with more than 30% of service centre personnel working with DX for over five years. To reinforce our shared values and develop a positive work environment, we have developed a Code of Ethics and Business Practices.

We continue to invest in our people with a dedicated specialist in reward structures and an ongoing programme of performance management, learning and development.

Employee Partnership
The Employee Partnership scheme ensures inclusive communication between DX employees at every level and the Management Team. Elected representatives from across the business hold regular briefings where views, ideas, concerns and opinions are openly expressed then fed back to Senior Management.

DXchange, the company intranet portal, provides a much more immediate means of communication and enables feedback from across the organisation. It is also a more efficient and environmentally friendly method of sharing knowledge and group-wide policies and procedures.

We are committed to providing equal opportunities of employment to all staff, regardless of their gender, nationality, colour or creed. The group’s policies on recruitment, training, career development and promotion are based solely on the ability of the individual and the needs of the group’s business.

Disabled persons are given equal treatment with the able bodied. For employees who have become disabled after joining the group, every effort is made to enable them to continue in employment and suitable retraining and/or an offer of alternative employment is provided where possible.

We are pleased to continue our long term support of Vision Aid Overseas. Every year, we collect over a million pairs of used spectacles which are donated by the public to hundreds of opticians across the UK. These are delivered free of charge to Vision Aid Overseas’ offices through the year, reconditioned and sent overseas to help people whose lives are blighted by poor eyesight. In August 2005, DX celebrated the delivery of the 10 millionth pair of spectacles.

We recognise the importance of health and safety across our business activities. We are therefore committed to meeting all the requirements of relevant health and safety legislation.

We are committed to recycling and limiting waste amongst consumables, paper, cardboard and plastic cups. These are recycled at all of our sites. We maintain our small fleet of vehicles to minimise environmental impact.

We actively engage with Postcomm and to a lesser extent with Postwatch, the statutory consumer body for the postal sector. This is ongoing – both formally as required under our licence, and in the wider context of policy formulation through meetings and responses to consultation documents.

The purpose of regulation is to protect customers from the uncontrolled inflow of unsustainable competition. This could prove highly disruptive in the short term and cause long term damage to the reputation and viability of mail as a reliable and cost effective means of communication.

Our licence requires us to satisfy Postcomm that we have put in place procedures that will minimise the risk of loss, theft, damage or other interference to mail within our system. We believe we achieve this by working openly and willingly with Postcomm and learning from their cumulative experience. Our objective is to become the postal operator to whom Postcomm turns when seeking an example of best practice within the industry to quote to others.

We have also played an active role in the formulation and subsequent activities of the Mail Competition Forum. This is the trade association set up in December 2004 to represent the interests of the new, licensed competitors to Royal Mail.