Social Value in Perspective: Driving Equality to Solve the Workforce Shortage
As part of our workplace equality campaign we have been sharing insights into hiring ex-offenders successfully, as a means of both solving staffing issues and creating social value in the community.
Below is a brief Q&A with an employer that has been doing just that.
Catch22 is an organisation that designs and delivers services that build resilience and aspiration in people of all ages within communities across the UK.
What were the main reservations you had surrounding employing ex-offenders?
The practicality of recruitment in certain settings, i.e., vetting being a barrier.
Our biggest concern was that vetting may prevent us from hiring inclusively. However, it is about finding ways to work around this as opposed to automatically assuming people can’t be recruited due to the vetting procedures.
Has hiring people with convictions helped you to reach a greater talent pool?
Yes, for example we hired a former gang member to assist us with our Gangs and Violence Reduction Service. We found it beneficial to use their lived experience to engage with young people and encourage them to exit gangs. The person in question used their expertise and journey to help empower young people to turn their back on the lifestyle. Their experience meant they had a deeper understanding of the issues at hand, and they were personally requested to speak with certain young people by schools who had worked with the individual before and seen their impact.
Have your customers/consumers responded well to this?
In relation to gangs and violence reduction, yes very much so.
What would you say to a company considering this more inclusive recruitment style?
Do it – People with lived experience bring so much value and dedication. The risks are low, people want to change their lives around and will dedicate themselves to the work.
If you’d like to be further involved with our Social Value In Perspective campaign, please email our Advocacy Lead, Matthew Mckew via matthew.mckew@socialvalueuk.org
Matt Eamer, founder of me&you said; “I’m excited that my creative agency can support Social Value UK in its mission to raise awareness and understanding of social value. We’ll be creating visuals and graphics to help bring Social Value in Perspective to life, making the themes accessible for new audiences.“
Social Value in Perspective: Driving Equality to Solve the Workforce Shortage
There are quite literally millions of people in the UK with a criminal record, often creating a barrier between them, employment and a second chance. SVUK sat down with Offploy founder Jacob Hill to understand some of the challenges, misconceptions and advantages of employing somebody who has fallen foul of the law.
Jacob is a board member of SVUK and his vision is for a world where everyone feels safe from crime – something we can all agree would have a positive impact on people or, in other words, be a positive social value outcome.
What issue do you hope to address?
Employers want to hire people with criminal convictions but often don’t know where to start. This a particular problem considering there are over 11 million people with convictions in the UK, including 1 in 3 adult males between the ages of 18 and 52. It means millions face the challenge of gaining meaningful employment, while there are simultaneously hundreds of thousands of vacancies post Brexit and Covid.
We are on a mission to support those at risk at offending, supporting them to access greater opportunities and achieve their full potential.
This means as well as supporting employers, we also support a whole range of socially excluded people through mentoring and advice services, ensuring that committing a crime is not their only option in life.
Why is this an issue?
Crime affects everyone including taxpayers of state services, the families of defendants, future generations and of course, the victims.
Employment, along with other areas of our support such as housing and health advice, is one of the greatest ways to reduce reoffending.
“Employers and the wider British economy is facing the strain of low unemployment with vacant roles likely costing our economy billions per year. Hiring from this talent pool, as more and more great employers like those on the Employer’s Forum for Reducing Reoffending are already doing, will be a sure way to fill some of those vacancies and keep our economy growing.”
When did you begin to address the issue? What’s the background?
I started Offploy after I was in trouble with the law for drugs, which resulted in a 28 month sentence. As the son of two police officers and my region’s young entrepreneur of the year, nobody – myself included – expected me to end up in that situation. Like my fellow inmates, it was a waste of talent and life.
I was inspired by those I met inside who wanted to redeem themselves and earn another chance in life, so on release, I started Offploy.
Fast-forward seven years and we are now a national team of 30. We have supported almost 4000 socially excluded people through our services and more employers are actively hiring people with convictions.
Credit: Offploy CIC
What are the benefits to employers?
Employers who have actively hired people with convictions have seen lower turnover, increased retention, increased reputation and access to untapped talent.
Polling commissioned by the Ministry of Justice found that over 90 percent of businesses who employ ex-offenders said they are reliable, good at their job, punctual and trustworthy.
Improved customer reputation, considering 81% of people think that businesses employing ex-offenders make a positive contribution to society.
Can this be adopted/replicated easily by employers?
Employers do not need to go through lengthy processes to hire people with convictions. We recommend they just get started, ask for advice and speak to others who have already walked this path.
Without any obligation, Offploy offers a free confidential 30-minute advice service for HR and CSR managers interested in hiring people with convictions. You can book a call in here.
What happens if this issue is not addressed? What’s the human impact?
Society is becoming more divided. Our government is attempting to hire 20,000 more police officers and building 20,000 more prison places. There are over 1.1 million job vacancies in the UK and crime has increased on our streets by over 8%.
Employment reduces reoffending, so hiring people with convictions not only helps fill our talent gap and make us a more productive economy, but also a safer one.
Be curious, ask questions and above all, approach every applicant with a fair mind in order to find your next great hire.
How do people looking for employment come to Offploy? And what is the process for them in getting a job?
People looking for employment after serving a criminal conviction are typically referred to Offploy by their probation officer or DWP Work Coach. Once they’ve been referred, the candidates begin a nine-step journey with Offploy’s team of Social Employment Advisors, many of whom have themselves had a criminal conviction. This process includes guidance on thinking about:
Career goals,
Sharpening CVs,
Crafting tailored cover letters,
Preparing a disclosure letter to explain convictions,
Correctly filling out application forms,
Anticipating interview questions, preparing questions for the interviewers, advice on dressing appropriately, and maintaining a positive and respectful demeanour throughout.
After the interview, candidates are also coached on seeking feedback to improve their chances of success in future applications. The overarching goal is to help these individuals secure sustainable employment and build meaningful careers, with Offploy’s team supporting them every step of the way.
How does Offploy support those gaining employment once they are hired?
We believe in more than just securing employment for those with criminal convictions; we’re committed to providing sustainable solutions and continuous support. From the outset, we equip our candidates with vital skills to not only find a job but to overcome adversity and challenges that may arise. Our programme is crafted to empower them to source their own employment opportunities in the future, fostering independence and resilience. And our support doesn’t end when a job placement is secured. Our door remains perpetually open for those we place into roles, ensuring they have a continuous lifeline of light touch support to lean on. We recognise the path to sustained employment isn’t always a straight one, and we are here to help navigate that journey, enabling them to stand firmly on their own two feet, confident and equipped for long-term success.
How does Offploy support the organisation employing those with a conviction?
We equip businesses with our tailored suite of employer services, training, coaching, and consultancy services that ensure the fair, consistent, and safe hiring of individuals with criminal convictions. To maintain a safe and sustainable recruitment, we follow our Seven Steps approach, including building a supportive culture, policy development, risk management, appropriate job marketing, interviews and vetting, onboarding support, and finally, measuring and managing social impact. Our strategy is about more than just filling vacancies, it’s about introducing diversity, resilience, and improving staff morale, enhancing ESG and ED&I credentials, and ultimately, reducing reoffending rates.
What are some of the misconceptions?
“People with criminal records can’t work.” People with criminal records can and do work. In fact, there are an estimated 12.1 million people with criminal records in the UK, many of whom are in sustainable employment and meaningful careers 1 .
“Nobody would want to hire someone with a criminal record.” There are organisations that advocate for the employment of people with criminal records and provide support to employers willing to hire such individuals. For instance, Offploy addresses the UK’s recruitment challenges by empowering HR and CSR Managers to access an untapped talent pool of ex-offenders.
“People with criminal records aren’t reliable.” People with criminal records can be reliable employees. By employing ex-offenders, businesses can boost staff morale, retention, and their reputation.
Can you give examples of some of the employers you have worked with?
We operate a highly confidential service with many of our employers currently dipping their toe in. As not to rock the boat too much we’d like to talk about the great work of some well-known brands in order to assure the reader that they haven’t gone out of business since embarking on this mission:
Timpson: The retail company, known for its shoe repair, key cutting and engraving services, has been a leader in providing employment opportunities to ex-offenders. They’ve established training academies within prisons and offer job placements upon release, with ex-offenders making up around 10% of their workforce.
Greencore: As one of the UK’s largest food manufacturers, Greencore has established an ‘EmployAbility’ programme specifically for ex-offenders, providing skills training and work opportunities within the company.
Greggs: The high-street bakery chain runs a scheme in partnership with national charity the Prison Reform Trust. Their initiative, ‘Fresh Start’, offers work placements and potential employment opportunities to people with criminal convictions.
Virgin Trains: In collaboration with the charity RIFT Social Enterprise, Virgin Trains launched a programme to support ex-offenders into work. The scheme provides training and job opportunities across the rail company.
Barclays: Barclays’ AFTER programme helps former military service personnel, including those with criminal convictions, to find employment. It offers work placements, direct employment opportunities, CV and interview coaching, as well as supporting other organisations to hire veterans. While the programme is not exclusively for ex-offenders, it does make a substantial contribution to this area.
If you’d like to be further involved with our Social Value In Perspective campaign, please email our Advocacy Lead, Matthew Mckew via matthew.mckew@socialvalueuk.org
Matt Eamer, founder of me&you said; “I’m excited that my creative agency can support Social Value UK in its mission to raise awareness and understanding of social value. We’ll be creating visuals and graphics to help bring Social Value in Perspective to life, making the themes accessible for new audiences.“
Social Value in Perspective: Driving Equality to Solve the Workforce Shortage
A conviction can be life changing and when we consider the social value an organisation creates, offering a second chance to somebody could be monumental.
But, with one in six people in the UK having a conviction on their record and more than a million job vacancies open, creating this form of positive social value has potential huge up sides to British employers.
It’s a question the government has been grappling with too, amid a Conservative manifesto pledge to reduce immigration.
Hospitality, manufacturing, health and social care are particularly feeling the strain, and the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development found this year a third of UK businesses were struggling to address skills gaps.
When we consider a conviction, we may think of the more extreme examples of law-breaking, but many of 11 million people in the UK to fall foul of the law, committed low-level, non-violent crimes.
The Ministry of Justice has evidence from employers such as Marks & Spencer that ex-offenders place a higher value on having a job because of a desire to stay out of prison. They also demonstrate higher levels of loyalty and employers benefit from reduced staff turnover.
With so many individuals sitting under the title of ‘ex offender’, taking a different approach to recruitment and considering these candidates more seriously, may help organisations to navigate their staffing woes.
“We’ve started working with ex-offenders and people coming towards the end of their sentence because it allows us to secure a pipeline of talent coming into our business,” Greene King spokesperson Greg Sage told the Ministry of Justice.
“In the hospitality industry there is a nationwide shortage of kitchen staff – kitchen managers and chefs particularly – that we at Greene King are not immune to.”
Social Value UK will be exploring how to safely and effectively employ those with criminal convictions throughout June as part of our Social Value in Perspective campaign.
We’ll be discussing the stigmatism around criminal records and the benefits associated with giving somebody second or third chance.
The Cook Kitchen’s Head of RAW Talent and Apprenticeships Annie Gale said: “There are three secret ingredients to doing this effectively.
“Put good support in place, assign partners so that each party does what they are good at and isn’t beyond their capacity, and grit – it doesn’t always work and that’s okay. Keep learning and go again.”
We are indebted to our member Offploy for their support on our Equalities-focused campaign and will be introducing you to their brilliant work later this week,
If you’d like to be further involved with our Social Value In Perspective campaign, please email our Advocacy Lead, Matthew Mckew via matthew.mckew@socialvalueuk.org
Matt Eamer, founder of me&you said; “I’m excited that my creative agency can support Social Value UK in its mission to raise awareness and understanding of social value. We’ll be creating visuals and graphics to help bring Social Value Perspectives to life, making the themes accessible for new audiences.“
Recruitment has become an increasing challenge for UK organisations, with little sign of the situation easing.
The British Chamber of Commerce revealed in April that a survey of 5,000 businesses found 80% attempting to recruit faced challenges, with hospitality and manufacturing firms most likely to report difficulties.
They further reported six in ten firms surveyed were actively trying to recruit staff.
The Federation of Small Business reported a similar situation last August, while a report in the House of Commons Library found Human Health and Social Work was drastically affected by high vacancies.
Social Value, at its heart, is impact on people and so as we look for solutions to this crisis, there can be no greater avenue than social value practice.
Organisations tend to be directed by their financial accounts – for good reason – and in the last decade or so there has been more attention on environmental footprint.
But, it is our stakeholders – our customers, service users, staff and community – who have a key role to play in the success or demise of an organisation.
Social Value International: 8 Principles
It is therefore vital that we recognise barriers unintentionally or otherwise erected to exclude many people from employment opportunities.
Earlier this year the Social Value in Perspective campaign revealed how our members have used the SVUK and Social Value International principles to embed more effective wellbeing programmes, leading to reduced sickness and improved workforce retention.
This month marks the launch of our second tranche of work, this time focusing on how social value practice can improve equality in the workplace.
We’ll cover the more discussed issues such as the gender pay gap and racism, while also delving into less discussed areas, such as employment for those with convictions.
Duncan Chapman, Senior People Partner, Reed in Partnership
In the Spring of 2022, Reed in Partnership set out on a mission to create a formal, structured employee wellbeing strategy. We recognised that, although we have many workplace benefits and reward mechanisms in place, co-members (Reed’s term for employees) were repeatedly feeding back that they were unsure what was in place, ultimately leading to confusion and low uptake of certain benefits.
Acknowledging that an individual’s wellbeing is much more than simply eating healthily and exercising for 30 minutes a day, we began to map out the pillars of wellbeing that make up an individual’s holistic wellbeing.
Our wellbeing strategy, My Wellbeing, focused on the five pillars of personal wellbeing:
Physical Wellbeing
Emotional Wellbeing
Financial Wellbeing
Career Wellbeing
Social Wellbeing
By breaking the strategy down like this, we aimed to enable our co-members to take ownership of their wellbeing, to build a happy, engaged, and resilient workforce for the company.
We structured our company benefits so co-members could clearly navigate to each pillar of My Wellbeing and access the corresponding benefits directly from there. We are also able to more accurately identify areas of improvement required for our benefits package, and act accordingly to improve the offering and communication across the business.
Co-members are now clearer on what benefits are provided for them, enabling them to make use of them for personal and professional development.
The company itself has also seen value in the My Wellbeing programme.
We have more engaged co-members, with increased resilience and satisfaction at the company, boosting our chances of retaining the best talent.
The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) Resourcing and Talent Planning Survey 2022 found an increased competition for talent last year.
The median cost of recruitment has also increased to between £1,000 and £3,000 per hire, meaning companies should be taking every step to retain their top talent (CIPD, 2022).
The are other benefits to investing in wellbeing, with workplaces that invest in employee wellbeing proving typically happier, healthier, and more productive.
Physically active workers take 27% fewer sick days. They are less stressed and report better morale than their less active colleagues. The potential economic return on investment (ROI) for a UK business that invests in workplace health initiatives is £4.17 for every £1 spent (British Heart Foundation, 2016).
We also offer wellbeing support for external organisations through our Reed Wellbeing subsidiary.
We provide a schedule of webinars, targeting each of the pillars of wellbeing in correlation with national awareness days.
These have proven very popular, and I would encourage any organisation that is looking to increase their wellbeing offering to their employees to get in touch.
In conclusion, the introduction of My Wellbeing has provided a clear and effective method for our co-members to access our workplace benefits.
It has maximised uptake and been structured so the company can assess impact and areas for improvement.
The value created for both co-members and the organisation is clear in theory, however, the true value created will be measured annually to ensure we are achieving what we set out to achieve.
Matt Eamer, founder of me&you said; “I’m excited that my creative agency can support Social Value UK in its mission to raise awareness and understanding of social value. We’ll be creating visuals and graphics to help bring Social Value Perspectives to life, making the themes accessible for new audiences.“
The first of SVUK’s eight principles is to engage with stakeholders.
It means putting your employees, your customers or service users and community at the forefront of your decision-making.
Waste management company and SVUK member SUEZ has used Principle 1 to shape their Wellness for All programme.
Three years on, SUEZ Wellbeing and Inclusion Manager Natalie Chard reflects on what has happened.
It’s important to remember the success of our wellbeing support programme is founded in employee engagement. Wellness for All was designed for our people, by our people and continues to be shaped by responding to the needs of our employees.
The programme takes a holistic approach to wellbeing, covering areas such as: social, mental, emotional, physical, financial, job-related wellbeing, the work environment and inclusion.
In autumn 2019 over 50 of our employees and the SUEZ Works Council developed our ‘Wellness Charter’ with a vision of ‘Wellness for All’. The charter articulated what wellbeing meant to them and how we could best support everyone to thrive and be their authentic selves.
Over the last three years we’ve focused on supporting our people’s mental health, particularly as it became a staff priority during the pandemic.
Wellness for All is delivered in many ways across our diverse workforce to ensure it is inclusive and reaches everyone.
It’s now part of our training provision and through our online catalogue, we provide Level 1 and 3 First aid for mental health awareness courses, ASIST (applied suicide intervention skills training), talking to teens, and self-harm awareness courses.
We know that poor wellbeing can be a distraction and potentially impact on safety, so we’ve integrated wellbeing into Health and Safety roles and ensured it’s on our meeting agendas.
We created bi-monthly wellbeing toolbox talks for managers to share with their teams, available in hard copy with QR codes and linking to videos with expert speakers on topic such as stress, anxiety and resilience.
Engagement with frontline employees was notoriously challenging, so we introduced 18 operations-based, regional volunteer Wellbeing and Inclusion Ambassadors. They understand the culture and work environment best and so are ideally placed to improve engagement in health and wellbeing campaigns.
Our wellness webinars held every Friday have featured subjects ranging from healthy eating to the restorative powers of exercise and coping mechanisms for anxiety.
Where possible we’ve shared these on LinkedIn as part of our social value commitment, giving access outside of our workplace to this fantastic wellbeing resource.
By analysing trends and listening to feedback from our people we continue to shape our programme.
In 2022, our webinar schedule included a ‘Monthly Move’ session, encouraging people to get into the habit of being active and being more proactive about their own wellbeing. These 30-minute broadcasts promoted activities such as yoga and tai chi.
Last September our #PhysicalHealthMonth campaign saw us roll out a health and wellbeing roadshow. At six SUEZ sites across the company’s four regions, employees were invited to take a free ‘MOT health check’. Our people really valued this and the roadshow will be back this year forming part of our Move-mber campaign.
Heart health is an area where we can reinforce our commitment to social value, by performing a public service alongside safeguarding employees. By the end of 2023, we intend to have an automatic external defibrillator (AED) at over 240 SUEX sites.
On the ground, wellbeing initiatives are increasingly popular with an increase in the uptake of webinars, employee benefits, coffee mornings and ‘time to talk’ sessions.
Discussing wellbeing matters has become the norm and we are creating designated wellbeing areas on our sites. Feedback has been positive, with our recent Usay survey reporting our people feel supported and know SUEZ is there for them.
Our Inclusion and Diversity Networks provide a safe space to discuss any challenges and to work on projects that have a positive impact on our people. This year our LGBTQIA+ Network has worked on raising awareness and educating colleagues, whole the Disabilities group has worked on an adjustment passport to support colleagues as they move around the business in different roles.
The Ethnicity group has created mentoring opportunities and our Women’s Network has driven change in some of our HR policies and introduced work wear for women at SUEZ.
Culture change takes time but over the last three years I have seen a huge difference in people’s attitudes towards wellbeing, inclusion and diversity.
People want to learn more and we are starting to see a direct impact on our people’s wellbeing.
In 2019, the average number of long-term sick days related to mental health, as opposed to other causes, was 47.66 days.
By 2022 this had dropped to 41.44 days, underlining how beneficials the changes have been.
Importantly, while the number of days lost decreased, we saw a 24% increase in reported mental health absences – reflecting the open and honest culture we have fostered. It shows progress on breaking down the stigma associated with mental health issues.
We’ve come a long way on our wellbeing journey and although there is still some way to go, I’m proud of the work we’ve done so far and excited about future opportunities.
Matt Eamer, founder of me&you said; “I’m excited that my creative agency can support Social Value UK in its mission to raise awareness and understanding of social value. We’ll be creating visuals and graphics to help bring Social Value Perspectives to life, making the themes accessible for new audiences.“
We need to find better ways to support people through their unique journeys – as employers, colleagues, family members and friends.
My name is Rob, and I WAS an alcoholic.
Not anymore.
On the 3rd September 2018 I had my last alcoholic drink – a very nice pint of Vocation Brewery’s ‘Life & Death’. The irony is not lost on me. Maybe I wasn’t going to die, but if I’d continued to drink I may not have had a life any more.
And I had a good life to live for. A fantastic, rewarding, if stressful, job. I had young children, a supportive wife and loving friends and family. People couldn’t contemplate that I had a problem, me included.
That’s because I was a high-functioning alcoholic.
It’s not the type of alcoholic most people picture – not a dishevelled, drinking vodka in the morning, being aggressive to the people around them, type.
But drinking had begun to have an impact on my day-to-day decisions. I would miss my train intentionally to squeeze in a couple of pints on my way home. I would stay up late to embrace that second or third bottle of wine. I would go out with my family to lunch, yes, but always to somewhere with a licence.
I knew I had a problem. It took me another two years to find the confidence to do something about it.
Giving up alcohol was a decision I made for me. Giving up any dependence or addiction is a selfish act. And that’s okay. You can’t do it for other people – your family, friends or colleagues. You need to do it for yourself.
I started by seeking support through my local GP and Drug and Alcohol Services, but the advice and help just didn’t ring true for me. “Get rid of your friends”, “change your hobbies”, “don’t go out” – I thought that sounded pretty rubbish. I had to find another way.
For me it was simple – talking. I underwent professional therapy, but also held self-indulgent conversations with open, supportive, friends and family who were also prepared challenged me and my behaviour.
Most importantly, I continued to experience the happiness that pubs, gigs, food, friends and music brought me. Experiences that used to involve drinking too much.
This helped me tackle the problems I was masking with booze, become comfortable and even confident with my “new normal”, and still be me.
My story is not the 12 steps. It’s not a 90s Bodyform advert where my change in lifestyle led to roller skating, marathon running and parachute jumps. It’s just my story of how I tackled a problem and how my friends, family and colleagues supported me to do so by backing my decision and allowing me to – in the words of Frank Sinatra and Sid Vicious – do it my way.
Creating a safe space to support employees with addiction
My experiences have taught me that we have a long way to go in understanding how we help people navigate dependence and addiction.
The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development states “employers should also take preventative action, ensuring their workplace is not a contributing factor to substance use and misuse”.
But most advice for companies dealing with drug and alcohol addiction focuses on how to punish the employee for the indirect effects of alcohol such as performance, punctuality and absence.
This approach is likely to exacerbate the problem.
The person is already struggling, they don’t need to be further burdened with threats to their career or lectures on the risks to their health and finances, because it will just add to their low self-esteem.
So what can you do to help as an employer?
Allow a person to talk about their situation – without fear of being judged or punished.
Find out what support is available locally – drug and alcohol services, meetings like AA or Andy’s Man Club – and allow time off to attend.
Identify mentors in your workforce who have been there and are willing to chat.
Foster an internal culture of openness and support.
Don’t just give them a leaflet.
Don’t punish them.
I’m no guru, I’m not a clean-living saint and I still can’t run a marathon.
But I am happy. And my productivity both in and out of work has rocketed since I felt able and supported to give up drinking.
There’s no magic bullet and no one-size-fits-all solution. But by telling my story, I hope to open eyes to the challenges of giving up alcohol, and suggest a different approach to supporting your colleagues, friends and employees to do so.
This blog was written by Rob Wolfe, Social Value Consultant and founder of CHY consultancy.
Matt Eamer, founder of me&you said; “I’m excited that my creative agency can support Social Value UK in its mission to raise awareness and understanding of social value. We’ll be creating visuals and graphics to help bring Social Value Perspectives to life, making the themes accessible for new audiences.“
For media enquiries, please contact Isabelle Parasram OBE, CEO of Social Value UK, through our office by emailing info@socialvalueuk.org
Content Warning: this blog references personal experiences of domestic abuse. If you want more information or support with domestic abuse, please visit: https://refuge.org.uk/.
Can a workplace policy save a life? I know it can.
I’ve been volunteering as a trustee for the last eight years with Chester Women’s Aid, a small charity supporting victims of domestic abuse.
We give crisis grants to survivors at the point they flee an abusive situation or leave refuge to go into dispersed housing.
Over the years, we’ve seen patterns in the grant applications related to employment. For example, bus fare to get to and from work, extra cash to buy food because of unpaid time off, and even fees for GP referral letters for work.
My employer, the multinational logistics firm Kuehne+Nagel, has for the last four years placed a greater emphasis on health and wellbeing at work. It follows a worldwide shift in employment philosophy: employee wellbeing has proven to benefit the bottom line and must therefore be a critical part of any business strategy.
We began to talk about topics I had never heard discussed in the workplace in my professional life: cancer, neurodiversity, menopause, period poverty, death and grief, dyslexia, LGBTQ+ and minority experiences. It seemed almost no topic was off limits, but one was missing….domestic abuse.
In England and Wales alone, it is estimated 1 in 4 women and 1 in 6 men will experience or have experienced domestic abuse in some form, and 74% of all victims of domestic abuse are women.
The types of domestic abuse vary, from financial, psychological and physical, to coercive control where the abuser uses intimidation, isolation and degradation to cut people off from the support they already have – including their jobs.
In 2009, a study was done to quantify the “cost” of domestic abuse to business, and it was estimated £1.9 billion per year is lost due to worsened productivity in the form of time off, lost wages and sick pay.
In 2020 and 2021, there were several high-profile murders of women in their workplaces by their current or former partners. The horrific events prompted Chester Women’s Aid to develop a domestic abuse awareness training programme aimed at employers.
The training taught owners, directors, HR managers and Mental Health First Aiders within a company what domestic abuse was, its impact in the workplace, and how those experiencing it could be supported. We found out that simple actions, such as swift changing of bank details or company phone numbers and shift hours, as well as time off to manage moving house, court dates, and childcare, could provide critical support to someone leaving and recovering from an abusive situation, while maintaining their employment.
It seemed a “no brainer” – the victim could get on their feet, while the employer retained talent and productivity with reduced safety and damage risks.
With this knowledge, I approached my own employer, Kuehne+Nagel, about developing a policy and delivering the awareness training to our business. They were incredibly supportive, and together with a HR policy manager, we managed to develop, approve, and roll out the policy within a year.
The training soon followed and as we promoted the new initiative, we heard stories from our colleagues and managers of “a time when”.
A time when they were scared or hurt and didn’t feel they could tell their manager. A manager who didn’t know their employee was being abused and thought they were underperforming for other reasons.
We learned of an example where an employee had disclosed being in abusive situation to a director and how the latter has managed the situation through intuition, without any formal guidance or policy to rely on.
We came to learn the Quality, Safety, Health and Environment team had not considered domestic abuse as a risk to safety at work for victims and their colleagues.
These stories reinforced the necessity of the policy and training, and generated moving and important discussions in the business.
It hadn’t taken long to develop a policy and yet it had the power to save lives.
Our policy and training and had unearthed issues we didn’t know existed in our company, yet had always been there.
“I feel great satisfaction from the accomplishments in our charity and at my workplace, but I know we cannot stop there – there will always be new managers, new colleagues, and new developments to keep up with in terms of the policy.”
Remote working adds new complexity – what happens when the “safe space” in an office is no longer available?
These concerns drive me to raise awareness of the role that employers have in providing a safe and supportive workplace.
We employ human beings experiencing a range of issues over their lifetimes, so when so many of them may face domestic abuse, we need to be educated and ready.
A policy really can save a life.
This blog was written by Angela Benson, UK Commercial Bid Manager at Kuehne + Nagel
Angela has worked in logistics for 20 years. Her current role is Senior Commercial Proposal manager where she provides consultation to sales owners on bid strategy and writes responses articulating the Social, Commercial, and Operational value of Kuehne+Nagel’s services. In her spare time, she volunteers as a trustee Chair for Chester Women’s Aid, who raise awareness of domestic abuse and funds for victims. Originally from the United States, she has worked in Asia, Europe, and now calls the UK home, along with her husband and son.
Matt Eamer, founder of me&you said; “I’m excited that my creative agency can support Social Value UK in its mission to raise awareness and understanding of social value. We’ll be creating visuals and graphics to help bring Social Value Perspectives to life, making the themes accessible for new audiences.“
For media enquiries, please contact Isabelle Parasram OBE, CEO of Social Value UK, through our office by emailing info@socialvalueuk.org
I was working in Bangkok when the first symptoms of perimenopause started to affect me.
I had no idea what was going on because my menstrual cycle was like clockwork and I thought I was too young to be starting the menopause.
Little did I know there are more than 40 different symptoms of the menopause and the hormones, which regulate far more than just our reproductive functions, can start to reduce in our thirties.
Over the past four years I have been on a journey of discovery, as I am sure thousands of women have.
I started to better understand the menopause, how to deal with life, work, the ongoing changes and how family, friends and colleagues can support us – and in turn – us them.
I am not going to talk about Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) in any great length, because I am not a medical expert in this field, but after a couple of years of trying to deal with the symptoms of menopause in various ways, I made the choice to start taking HRT.
I am one of the lucky ones, in that HRT agreed with my body and it has been life-changing in coping with and abating my many symptoms.
I would advise doing your own research and speaking to a medical professional to understand more about this form of therapy.
“When I joined Atkins in April 2021, I was delighted to discover there were two menopause employee networks. To date we have 570 employee members, 23 trained advocates, and have held over 15 events, coffee stops, lunches and learns in 2022 alone.“
I jumped at the chance to join this important network and if during meetings my brain decides to fog over rather than let the words come through, I have no shame in pausing and explaining what is happening.
I feel my role in the employee network as a menopause advocate is to educate everyone to understand more about the menopause, give colleagues a safe space to discuss this health challenge, share personal experiences, make younger staff aware for the future and “be” the change that makes all of this happen.
A report produced by the Fawcett Society (May 2022) found the vast majority of women surveyed (77%) find at least one perimenopause/menopause symptom ‘very difficult’, while 44% of women experience three or more severe symptoms.
Women are most likely to say they find sleeping (84%), brain fog (73%), and anxiety or depression (69%) difficult.
Of menopausal women in employment, 44% say their ability to work has been affected by their symptoms.
By creating and maintaining a more inclusive and considered work environment for women who might be affected by the menopause, we are ensuring we retain a highly experienced and valuable demographic in our workforce.
Conversely, with potentially one in ten women leaving work because of their menopause symptoms, inaction poses a real threat to achieving gender equality.
So, what can you and your organisation do to increase awareness?
Give support, be inclusive, and retain and attract talent into your businesses (this is what we have done at Atkins):
Create a menopause network
Train menopause advocates
Include menopause symptoms on your company sickness form
Produce line management guidance for staff
Include menopause symptoms to your reasonable adjustment policy
Work towards being a menopause friendly employer through accreditation with Home – Henpicked
We cannot underestimate the importance of making menopause part of our everyday conversations in the workplace. So, let’s keep talking, sharing, supporting and campaigning.
This blog was written by Michelle Baker, Associate Director and Social Value Lead at Atkins Global.
Michelle has worked in the built environment for 20+ years, in a variety of roles for mostly private organisations. She is passionate about creating wider outcomes on the projects she delivers to benefit communities, local economies, and the planet by collaborating with stakeholders and client teams. Her role at Atkins is to shape, develop and lead the social value consultancy of their Infrastructure business to provide both strategic support and operational delivery services for their teams, projects and clients
Matt Eamer, founder of me&you said; “I’m excited that my creative agency can support Social Value UK in its mission to raise awareness and understanding of social value. We’ll be creating visuals and graphics to help bring Social Value Perspectives to life, making the themes accessible for new audiences.“
For media enquiries, please contact Isabelle Parasram OBE, CEO of Social Value UK, through our office by emailing info@socialvalueuk.org
The following blog was written by Chell da Silva Willis. Founder and director of Elephants & Empathy, Chell is an Advanced Grief Recovery Method Specialist, a Mental Health First Aider and a qualified English teacher (including pastoral leadership). Chell works full-time as Programme Manager for Transform Lives Company (TLC) in Liverpool, delivering a wellbeing and employability programme for participants who are currently out of work and in need of some ‘TLC’.
Content Warning: this blog references personal experiences of death and bereavement.
This blog, a looming feature of my ‘To Do List’, means to write about the worst day of my life.
To write about the ordinary and unremarkable Wednesday, 20th March 2019, when the love of my life kissed me goodbye, left for work, and never came back.
To write about the day I arrived at A&E to be told I had ten minutes to “say goodbye” to Craig, as they finished the final fruitless throes of CPR, following a cataclysmic heart attack.
“The day I had to hold his hand and rest my sobbing head on his thigh, still warm with the final remnants of life. This is where that part of my life – and Craig’s – ended, and this one begins.”
I’ll spare you the horrific further details of that day, of the weeks, months and years that followed, but I’ll say this, my world was thrown off its axis.
The landscape I recognised, sought comfort from, expected to hold on to for the rest of my life, had been obliterated.
I was suddenly an alien on a planet that no longer had any familiarity, a place where bad things really did happen to good people, where even nature seemed to have no purpose. A place where I was everyone’s worst nightmare.
I spent endless time online with fellow young widows, some even younger than the 40-year-old me.
I heard horror stories of how they returned to work and were expected to ‘bounce back quickly’, as if their time off was for nothing more than a stinking cold in a bleak winter.
A close family member, also deeply affected by Craig’s sudden and untimely death, received short shrift and criticism for not “being strong” and for “bringing problems into work”. Something had to be done. So, when I was ready, I decided to do it.
Out of the ashes rose some tiny elephants. Then larger ones. Then all the elephants from all the rooms they’d been squatting in for so very long. It was time for the elephants in the room to be addressed, seen, and heard. It was time to remind each other that to listen is to have empathy and to empathise you must listen.
I knew what I wanted to achieve came with enormous responsibility, but I was in a strong position. My expertise in delivering (I was a teacher for many years), plus my lived or studied versions of grief helped me to produce workshops on dealing with loss and bereavement.
I qualified as an Advanced Grief Recovery Method Specialist and delved in with 121 clients. At first, I wrote workshops for the community, dipping my toes into the world of the baffled bereaved – those desperate for somewhere to turn that didn’t involving waiting months and months. The workshops offered somewhere they could be genuinely heard – often for the first time.
I did two pilot sessions: one face-to-face and the other online during lockdown. The participants loved it and so did I. I needed to do more.
There continues to be a glaring gulf between what people think they know about grief and the reality for grievers.
The pandemic highlighted and underlined the issue. We are mostly grief-illiterate, trying our best to communicate but failing to speak the same language.
We get it wrong, so we stop trying. We say things to help. But they don’t, so we back away.
Since Covid, around one in eight people have experienced a bereavement, often with life-changing loss, the kind of loss that, like mine, throws their world off its axis.
I want to help. I want to be part of the movement towards learning this new language, to support grievers, to support those who want to support others – and here I am.
Elephants & Empathy has joined forced with the Transform Lives Company to help people live happy, fulfilling lives beyond bereavement, by providing Grief in the Workplace workshops.
Come and learn this new language with us. Make mistakes, laugh, cry, listen, be heard.
Finally, I go back to the reason I’m doing this. For my darling Craig. For all the others out there, whose lives are unrecognisable and forever divided into ‘Before and After’. For all those grievers who need to be understood, acknowledged, and supported in a way we don’t always know how.
Matt Eamer, founder of me&you said; “I’m excited that my creative agency can support Social Value UK in its mission to raise awareness and understanding of social value. We’ll be creating visuals and graphics to help bring Social Value Perspectives to life, making the themes accessible for new audiences.“
For media enquiries, please contact Isabelle Parasram OBE, CEO of Social Value UK, through our office by emailing info@socialvalueuk.org
People want to know what social value is and means
Organisations are feeling motivated, one way or another, to maximise their social impact and measure it
Research shows that amongst the general population, there is a hunger for more accountability and responsiveness to the way that organisations contribute to, or destroy, people and planet – 76% think that social and environmental information should either be made available in a company’s accounts or be included in the calculation of overall profitability of a company.
We want to use our membership and movement to increase understanding of social value; how measuring our impact, through stakeholder engagement, and making informed decisions, can really make the world a better place.
That’s why we are so pleased to be launching a new advocacy programme called ‘Social Value Perspectives’. ‘Social Value Perspectives’ will comprise a themed blog series, culminating in a conference on the same theme, running three themes a year. It will be based on themes linked to the 3 pillars of our organisational vision– wellbeing, equality and the environment.
Social Value UK has a strong community of social value experts and practitioners within its membership. This community has helped to lead us and the social value agenda in the UK, and so we have geared much of our content to meeting the needs of this more technical crowd. This will continue. ‘Social Value Perspectives’ will be adding to this, by introducing a more accessible component to our work, supporting those at any point in their social value journey and understanding to join the conversation.
As the UK professional body for social value and impact management in the UK, building strong relationships across the UK and with a broader range of people and organisations will help strengthen our combined voice and has potential to influence key decision-makers. We want to empower our members – and beyond – to speak out about how we want organisations to act.
The main aim of ‘Social Value Perspectives’ will be to:
Raise the profile of Social Value UK and our members
Represent the views of our members and influence key decision-makers.
Raise awareness and understanding of social value by making it relevant, accessible, and relatable to new audiences
Grow our movement and community
Generate diverse income streams to fund our advocacy work on behalf of members
The themeculminating conferences will be geared towards organisations, interested in hearing live versions of the blogs, turning inspirational ideas into practical guidance they cantake back to their teams; they will also provide ample opportunity to make helpful connections and to hear more about how we support the movement.
What are the themes?
Every new theme of Social Value Perspectives will be led by our core aims as a change-making organisation. The first three themes (latter two are working titles), will be:
Theme 1, November to February 2023: Creating Value through a Well Workplace
Theme 2, March to June 2023: Driving Equality through Better Business
Theme 3, July to October 2023: Think Social Value, Think Environment
