To mark the official opening of its new office in Salford Quays, Bupa UK has launched the ‘Everyone’s Welcome’ pledge, a business commitment to embrace diversity across its workforce within a fully inclusive environment. Supported by Mind Salford and INvolve Ltd, Bupa is encouraging Manchester businesses to get involved and also sign up to the pledge.
Named Bupa Place, the building is situated on the waterside and is home to over 2,000 employees that previously worked across two offices in Salford Quays. It has been rated BREEAM Excellent for its sustainability performance, putting it amongst the top 10% of UK new non-domestic buildings. Being environmentally-friendly and people’s wellbeing were essential to the build, and continue in its day to day running. Efficient glazing, high-efficiency boilers and lighting controls reduce its carbon impact and energy consumption. Since moving, a car sharing scheme has been established and single-use plastic cups and Styrofoam food containers removed.
To mark the move, Bupa UK launched the ‘Everyone’s Welcome’ pledge, helping to create a positive working environment where our employees are comfortable to bring their whole self to work. Bupa UK believes inclusion is an important part of how it does business, which is why the business welcomes different backgrounds and cultures.
The pledge is presented in a plaque at the main entrance to the building and represents Bupa UK’s commitment to understanding and celebrating people’s differences, and supporting diversity, such as disability, mental health, women in the workplace and LGBTQI+. David Hynam, Bupa UK CEO, said: “Our heritage in the Manchester area goes back 70 years. We’re proud to be cementing our future in the community with the opening of Bupa Place. It’s a cutting-edge, collaborative office where our people should feel comfortable to bring their true selves to work.
"Inclusion is so important and runs through everything we do at Bupa, which is why we’ve launched our Everyone’s Welcome pledge. We welcome organisations across Greater Manchester to show their support and join us in the pledge.”
The new £65m building was officially opened by David Hynam and Bianca Walkden, Taekwondo World Champion along with members of the community including representatives from Salford City Council, and members of various local charities and business that partner with Bupa.
Bianca Walkden, two-time Taekwondo World Champion and Olympic medallist, lives and trains in Manchester. She says: “I’m honoured to help officially open Bupa Place. There are two things about today’s celebration that are particularly close to my heart – the fact we’re in Manchester because it’s a big part of my life. And, ‘Everyone’s Welcome’ pledge – it’s great to see Bupa celebrating diversity, in particular, empowering women in the workplace and working to break down the stigma around mental health.”
Employees have been involved in celebrating the opening, including the Hughes family all who work at Bupa. Helen Hughes, Customer Services Manager, has worked at Bupa for almost 30 years, alongside her husband Ged who joined 10 years ago, and the most recent addition their daughter Nicola, one year ago. Helen added: “I’ve seen many positive changes over the 30 years I’ve worked here, especially how we embrace new technologies to better serve our customers and as a way to reduce waste. It’s an end of an era to move office, I’m thrilled to see the positive impact it has on everyone’s wellbeing.”
Notes to editor
Everyone’s Welcome pledge
We believe that our places of work are better when they create a positive working environment where everyone’s welcome. We want people to feel comfortable and free to bring their whole self to work.
We believe that:
- Inclusion should be a natural part of the way we do business and that business is simply better for welcoming different backgrounds, ideas, and cultures.
- It’s important to understand and celebrate our differences, creating inclusive cultures which welcome everybody and where people are supported to reach their full potential.
- Nobody should be treated unfairly because of their individual characteristics, race, sex, religion/beliefs, disability, marital or civil partnership status, age, sexual orientation, mental health and health status or anything else about them.
We are committed to:
- Raising awareness and helping create a better understanding of and respect for all the differences which make us unique.
- Creating supportive, understanding work environments where there’s no stigma attached to mental illness.
- Creating a welcoming, inclusive culture in our organisations which is led from the very top.
- Taking action against any form of discrimination, harassment or bullying.
About Bupa Place
The office space spans six floors which have been designed to enable agile and flexible working. As well as desks, there are soft seating areas for more informal meetings and collaboration spaces for team huddles and project work.
Bupa Place is home for a diverse range of teams, including Contact Centre, Health Services, HR, Sales, Marketing, Finance, Property and IT.
The building façade is designed to curve away from the waterfront, creating space for the outdoor landscaping and waterside terraced areas, as well as maximising the view across the water. The large central atrium and glazed roof light creates an open and light working environment across the floors, creates a connection between floors. Running up the centre is a 5m-high Barringtonia tree, this along with the use of sustainable organic and recycled materials were chosen to help promote mental wellbeing in a relaxing work environment.
Bupa UK has proudly been part of the Manchester community for more than 70 years as the city was home to one of our first branch offices in 1948.
Bupa also has offices across the UK, including London, Staines, Bristol, Coventry and Leeds, housing around 22,000 employees who support over 5 million customers with their health, care and wellbeing needs through its health clinics, care homes, private medical insurance, dental practices and the Bupa Cromwell Hospital.
About Bupa
Bupa's purpose is helping people live longer, healthier, happier lives and making a better world.
We are an international healthcare company serving over 31 million customers worldwide. With no shareholders, we reinvest profits into providing more and better healthcare for the benefit of current and future customers.
We directly employ around 85,000 people, principally in the UK, Australia, Spain, Chile, Poland, New Zealand, Hong Kong SAR, Turkey, Brazil, Mexico, the US, Middle East and Ireland. We also have associate businesses in Saudi Arabia and India.
