Voluntary Ethics Position Statement

At Ometria, our sole purpose is to help retailers create marketing experiences their customers will love. We help our clients nurture their loyal and engaged customers who come back to them time and time again. We pride ourselves on having created a workplace that we’re all really excited to be in every day, so that we can build amazing things for our clients and spend time with people we really like.

We are proud of what we have created and, since our inception, we have set out to create a company where Ometrians can grow and develop in a trusting, supportive environment, surrounded by awesome people. Along the way these concepts have been articulated into our core five values. We can only continue to lead in this way by ensuring we conduct our business in compliance with the laws, rules and regulations that apply to us and our platform, and also by holding ourselves accountable to our own high standards. We measure ourselves annually against our values – which are at the core of everything we do at Ometria. They are:

• Team over self – We prioritise the benefit of the team over personal gain. We don’t make decisions that negatively impact the team.

• Respect for the trust we’ve been given –  We act honourably and never abuse the trust we’ve been given by customers or the team.

• Relentless in the pursuit of mastery – We always believe we can do better. We push others and help them to do better.

• It’s awesome to be here – We want to be here, we feel lucky to be here, and we show this through our positive energy.
• Self awareness – We’re aware of our strengths and weaknesses, how they impact our work and other people, and we’re always seeking feedback on both.

But we are not just insular with our values. As they are at the heart of everything we do, we are constantly looking at how we can help improve our clients’ experiences and relationship with us to make sure that you also think it’s awesome to be here…working with us. We also recognise that upholding certain ethical standards and helping our clients meet their  requirements also meets and upholds our core values. So, in this, our ‘Voluntary Ethics Position Statement’, we have set out (against our values) our position on each of the requirements our clients may have.

We recognise that we are a key part of our clients’ supply chain, and, that we have many enterprise level clients who need to comply with certain reporting and legal requirements, such as the Modern Slavery Act 2015, which needs our input and support. While we are not caught by this legislation at present, we do appreciate that any of our clients who are caught by this, need to have end-to-end transparency on their level of risk and will need to report externally on the steps taken to assess our involvement in their supply chain. 

Modern Slavery:

The Modern Slavery Act 2015 (“Act”) is aimed at providing transparency on slavery and human trafficking within supply chains and creates offences where a company knew or ought to have known about enslavement and/ or trafficking within its supply chain. The Act also requires, from March 2016, companies who meet the stated thresholds to provide an annual Modern Slavery statement. As we are committed to ‘team over self’, we want to help our enterprise clients have as much information as possible of our supply chain so that they can have  end-to-end transparency for their own modern slavery risk assessment(s). 

Starting with us, as a UK, office-based SAAS provider, operating within the online retail sector, we believe that our supply chain is low risk from a modern slavery perspective. We use a variety of internally built software, AI and open source software to help create the Ometria platform. We, like our suppliers, therefore need to employ highly-skilled professionals to be able to deliver the best service to our clients. 

Within our office, from time to time we also have our cleaners and couriers. While these individuals are not employed by us, they still form part of our ‘offering’ and so we have set out further details so that you can form your own risk assessment: 

1. Hive is an accredited London Living Wage Employer (“LLW”). The LLW is an ethical hourly rate set by an independent foundation and updated annually. It is recognised as being the minimum hourly rate to allow their cleaners and their families to live above the poverty line. They are proud to say that 100% of their employees are paid the LLW or above it. Hive are also committed to equal pay, diversity and inclusivity, and are aware of their socio-environment impact. Their range of commitments are detailed on their website (see hyperlink above) and we believe Hive to be low risk from a modern slavery perspective. We appreciate working with companies who go that extra mile!
2. UPS are our preferred couriers and their modern slavery statement can be found here. Given the global reach of UPS, the sophistication of their group and their commitment to social, economic and sustainability commitments – above and beyond what is required – we believe that UPS are also low risk from a modern slavery perspective. 

We have a procurement process where new suppliers are reviewed, vetted and risk assessed, with the process being manager by our General Counsel. Given the nature of the SAAS industry, we are not always able to negotiate our contracts with our suppliers but, as we respect the trust we have been given, we use reputable suppliers who have successfully completed our procurement process. 

We have the following main suppliers who will form part of your supply chain. As we are a SAAS provider, we use a variety of other providers to help create the Ometria platform. We do not always have negotiating power with these organisations and therefore have to sign up to their terms ‘as is’. However, to help with your transparency and risk assessment we have included below their modern slavery statement (where one is available on their group website) and their terms of use.

We act honourably and ethically and are proud of our behaviour. As we value our ethical behaviour, and our financial probity and reliability, we have implemented within our employee handbook:

1. a full Code of Conduct for our employees where example behaviours are listed against each value; 
2. an Anti-Bribery and Corruption/ Gifts and Hospitality policy setting out what we do not tolerate and what our employees’ responsibilities are under this policy; and 
3. a clear Whistleblowing policy which sets out what is meant by a ‘qualifying disclosure’, details our internal whistleblowing process and provides the contact details for an external whistleblowing charity ‘Protect’ (previously known as ‘Public Concern At Work’), where whistleblowing cannot be dealt with through our  internal process.

Every new employee is given access to our handbook and they must attest that they have read it in full. We ask all of our existing employees to confirm they have re-read the handbook on an annual basis. 

We believe that our behaviour in our work is more than just enacting policies which is why making our values at the core of everything we do is so important. ‘Respect For The Trust We Have Been Given’ extends to upholding our high confidentiality standards when we are both in and away from the office. Our employees must lock away laptops when they are not being used and must do so each evening. When leaving desks, computers must be locked so as to prevent any unauthorised access. We also pride ourselves on regularly checking configuration of passwords and multi-factor authentication for access to our internal drives and email – plus we have an office with secure entry features and is manned 24/7 by building management.

Most importantly, we Respect…The Trust We Have Been Given in our clients’ data. Given the increasing and diverging global data standards, we hold ourselves to the highest level of data integrity and have secured an industry recognised standard of ISO27001. 

We never stop trying to ‘up our game’ and believe that continuing to fuel our rocketship is something that everyone at Ometria can contribute to. It is for this reason that we have our unique authentication process; the gruelling final stage of our interview process. Our authentication really allows us to connect with each interviewee, understand their character and know whether they are the right fit for the rest of the company. 

We continue to upgrade our systems, suppliers and providers to ensure that we are continuing to meet the high expectations and standards that we set for ourselves. Over the last year we have established a Diversity Committee to ensure that we can build on our awesome recruitment approach and make sure we are a fair employer.

We also voluntarily commit to updating our Voluntary Ethics Statement at least annually to see how we may improve on our commitments. 

From an employment perspective, we treat everyone with dignity and respect. We do not relocate our newly recruited employees nor do we house them. We pay our employees at least a living wage, we care about our workforce and we encourage both social events and a good work/life balance. When we are in the office, we provide a safe and comfortable working environment for all of our employees. We have several trained mental health first aiders which we feel is imperative in the current pandemic. All of our employees are asked to complete regular health and safety appraisals of their remote work spaces and we have provided every employee with a budget to set their working areas up as best as possible. We do full right to work checks on our employees and never confiscate or withhold our employees’ passports.

We are as transparent as we can possibly be with our employees and make sure that they know how much holiday they are entitled to – and it is monitored by our People team to ensure that all of our employees take the legal minimum and get a break! 

In addition to our Whistleblowing Policy, we also have a Grievance Procedure to ensure that our employees can raise their grievances in a secure and professional manner plus have clear statements on ‘Harassment and Bullying’ and ‘Equality’. We want all of our employees to feel equally valued.

We are always reviewing what we do and how we do it, so will be keeping this document up to date. We are also happy to answer any additional questions you may have as well as receiving feedback.