At Embassy REIT, we believe in creating shared value for our employees, our occupiers, our vendors and the communities we operate in. We work hard to implement policies that promote a stable and secure climate for all of our stakeholders.
We are an equal opportunity employer and strive to create a holistic workplace for our workforce. We ensure diversity in our employee profile in terms of gender, ethnicity, caste and creed. Female workers make up 23% of our staff. During FY2021, 35 new workers were hired, with women accounting for 20% of the workforce.
Our compensation policy is solely dependent on our employees’ qualification, experience, skill set and performance. All our employees are entitled to statutory benefits like contribution to provident fund, pension fund, gratuity, and health and life insurance.
We realise the importance of investing in the growth and development of our employees and encourage our employees to engage in continuous learning. Last year, several e-learning opportunities were made available to our employees every month, as we all had to transition to working from home. Some of these learning challenges focused on enhancing our employees’ health and well-being and how they could navigate through some of the challenges associated with coping with the COVID-19 scenario. Employees received about 716 hours of preparation throughout the year.
We believe that occupier engagement and satisfaction is critical to the success of our business. Several programmes are undertaken at our campuses to engage our occupiers and foster a sense of culture. Energize, Q Life, and Embassy Plus are a couple of Embassy REIT's signature employee engagement activities. However, due to the onset of the COVID-19 outbreak in March 2020 and the resulting remote working situation, we could not organise these activities
during the year.
In FY2021, a customer satisfaction survey was undertaken to understand our occupier satisfaction levels with our services and perceptions regarding our campus facilities. The survey also included aspects of ESG such as waste management, safety and security, electrical and utilities management, among other things. As we strive to make improvements in our operations continuously, the feedback provided by our occupiers is invaluable and enables us to take decisions keeping our stakeholders' needs in mind. According to the survey results, 85% of occupiers were pleased with Embassy REIT’s EHS and well‑being services, and 84% of suppliers were satisfied with the ESG aspects.
At Embassy REIT, we nurture and contribute to the economic, social and environmental development of our communities. Underpinned by the philosophy 'together we can do more', Embassy champions collective action for increased social impact through partnerships with other corporates, NGO partners and the government.
Our community educational interventions have benefited 53 government schools, 100 rural schools and 6 anganwadis in the last year. A key highlight of the year was the launch of Sputnik, an online learning platform for students. This project was undertaken in collaboration with Colours of Life, one of our NGO partners. During the lockdown, while schools were shut down for a prolonged period, these online sessions kept the students engaged and ensured that their learning was not disrupted. As a part of the Alumni programme conducted by Colours of life, five students were employed by Embassy REIT in the facilities management arm after an intensive month‑long training.
Remote learning resources were made open to 1,604 students through our collaboration with Room to Read, and 19 Embassy REIT funded schools were outfitted with education equipment. In collaboration with Friends of Tribals, we also extended the scope of our education initiatives to rural Karnataka, where 100 schools for tribal children were equipped with teachers' tools to improve the educational standards of these schools.
Our efforts to enhance the government school educational system goes hand in hand with improving their infrastructure and creating environments conducive to learning. In partnership with ANZ, we completed the handover of the Government Urdu Model Primary School in Hegdenagar, Bengaluru. The project's highlights include using recycled raw materials and installing of solar panels on the roof to reduce carbon emissions.
Embassy REIT has been championing preventative health awareness in government schools since 2016, helping a generation of students develop an improved life-long resilience to disease. Embassy and its corporate partner in health, Cerner, have collaborated to design a targeted programme that tackles common health issues in a comprehensive manner – from preventive to detective. Partnering Cerner and a consortium of corporates, we bolstered our existing programmes including the distribution of ~30,000 health kits to 19,000 government school students, preventive awareness and top-to-bottom school maintenance due to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
As government schools finally opened in the new year, we conducted deep cleaning and sanitisation drives including of the water and sump tanks throughout the month of December in 18 government schools. We also furnished our adopted government schools with sanitiser foot stands, enough sanitiser for daily usage, temperature monitors and posters on COVID-19 preventive measures.
Community healthcare interventions too were undertaken in partnership with the Sarvagna Healthcare Institute. During the year, 2,773 beneficiaries received free or subsidised dialysis with 2,678 out-patient consultations and 2,440 lab tests performed.
Distributed to 19,000 government school students
Embassy REIT is working closely with NGOs to catalyse communities to develop and implement strategic infrastructure to benefit our environment. We are a proud partner of The Anonymous Indian Charitable Trust's EcoGram Solid Waste Management project, which aims to propagate sustainable waste, water and soil management. With current operations spread across 8 villages in the Bettahalasuru Panchayat, Karnataka, we collected 301 metric tons of dry waste and 323 metric tons of wet waste. We conducted five workshops on waste segregation and management for 89 beneficiaries from three bulk generators and a workshop on 'Trashonomics' on solid waste management for 25 students.
Embassy REIT's Corporate Connect programme aims to bring together the 190+ corporate occupiers of our business parks with a shared vision for our communities. A strong, aligned focus in partnering together, identifying innovative solutions, executing projects and bringing in the involvement of stakeholders is the path we see towards sustainable impact. In FY2021, we collaborated with 13 corporates towards 17 projects in government school infrastructure, COVID-19 relief and health, raising `4.02 crore. Our corporate partners include Cognizant, Software AG, ANZ, Cerner Technology Services, Swiss RE, AXA, Silicon Valley Bank, Colt, Fractal, NVIDIA and IndusInd Bank.
Dry and wet waste were collected from the villages
In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we worked to provide essential food rations for those disproportionately affected, support our frontline heroes with the provision of much-needed protective equipment, bolster our existing health infrastructures and much more. The new normal has not only changed our approach to Corporate Social Responsibility, but also reinforced the success of our model – ‘Together, we can do more.’
Some of the initiatives we undertook:
