A corporate social change occurred in the second half of 2018. Our CEO began to find added value in moving from a pure profit perspective to the PPP (People, Planet, Profit) perspective. 2019 began our concerted effort to concentrate on all three P’s. We strive to change, improve, and make better the communities in which we work and live.
The world continues to strive to return to some form of a more familiar life as existed prior to the onset of COVID-19. This has impacted company ability to engage in vendor, employee, and client satisfaction surveys as reflected in KPIs. REJ plans to return to this practice at the appropriate time.
In 2021:
REJ donated a painting project to Carlisle Baseball Association for the painting of their press box at the ball field. Company also created, assembled, and provided gift baskets for the silent auction of the Fur Ball benefiting Humane Society Harrisburg Area. During Christmas, REJ provided hams to our local food pantry. We also sponsored four adult residents of the YWCA Greater Harrisburg in providing Christmas gifts. We honored servicemen by purchasing seats to a home Penn State football game honoring their service to our country through the “Seats for Servicemen” program at the university. REJ provides support to several organizations on a quarterly basis, including: Nobody’s Cats Foundation, Ecumenical/Manna Food Pantry, Keep Pennsylvania Beautiful, and Humane Society Harrisburg Area to name a few. The company remembers everyone deployed by wearing red t-shirts every Friday. We began our 100th anniversary celebration by participating in 28 service projects benefitting our community by supporting local 501(c)(3) organizations.
We continuously strive to diversify the workforce. We want to add racial diversity, which has been difficult due to few applicants of color. Age diversity in 2021 reflected 6% of the workforce under age 24 or younger, while 46% was age 50 and above. Our management team participated in the YWCA Greater Harrisburg “21 Days Racial Equity and Social Justice Challenge” culminating in the Race Against Racism.
REJ prefers to work with local independently owned vendors, with emphasis on women and minority ownership. For 2021, REJ used 49% of our vendor spend with local independent owned businesses. Of this 49%, 1% was spent with women owned businesses.
According to https://geomap.ffiec.gov/FFIECGeocMap/GeocodeMapl.aspx., our entire workforce is in moderate-middle income areas, located in the 3 counties surrounding our office (Dauphin, Cumberland, Lebanon). Through an in-depth analysis, we ascertained that 100% of our employees were paid a living wage in 2021.
We encourage employees to give back to the community through company-sponsored events and service projects as well as those chosen on our employees’ own personal time. We have set annual goals for employee volunteer hours. Our 2021 goal for employee volunteer hours was 250 hours of service to the community; we ended the year with 298.4 volunteer service hours.
Ralph E. Jones, Inc. shows the company’s commitment to social responsibility through philanthropy. We contribute time, talent and resources, on a continuing basis, to local charities to assist with their daily operations. An example of a recent facility improvement project is the Carlisle Baseball Association ball field press box. Ralph E. Jones, Inc. is known and respected in our community for its philanthropic endeavors. REJ supports animals by rescuing three kitties who live in our offices. We also support the feral cat population by participating in TNR efforts with local shelters.
Employee and Vendor engagement are areas for focus moving forward. This has been challenging since the COVID-19 restrictions and protocols. In 2022, REJ would like to see improved response rates for our surveys.
Planet considerations include a changeover to a “green clean” workplace. We changed to green products to clean our offices and required our outside cleaning company to use those products.
Social and environmental company performance is demonstrated through 2021 commitments to:
- Tracking of office recyclables including aluminum, plastic, cardboard, glass
- Use 100% green cleaning products
- End use of disposable dishes and utensils
- Shred office paper – bins containing paper are collected quarterly, shred, and then repurposed to create other products
- Reduce postage use
- Reduce electric use, waste/sewage
Ralph E. Jones, Inc. is proud of a 96% local customer base KPI. We track social and environmental key performance indicators (KPIs) to determine if we are meeting objectives and accept the commitment to continuously seek to improve our KPIs and to report the information through our social media channels. A copy of our latest KPI document follows this report.
Download REJ’s 2021 KPIs (PDF)