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Beyond Hiring: Empowering Disadvantaged Groups and Delivering Social Value
Equal Opportunity - Reduce the disability employment gap and tackle workforce inequality.
When it comes to employment, diversity is an important topic and one that, while talked about a lot and outlined in the Social Value Model, is not always an easy thing to deliver on. So, we want to delve into some key ways that organisations can access a more diverse pool of talent, deliver strong social value and promote productivity and innovation.
What the Social Value Model Says About “Workforce Representation’’ and Employment
There are explicit references to improved workforce representation in the Social Value Model under the Tackling Economic Inequality theme and of course theme 4 - Equal Opportunity; for example, increasing the representation of and developing the skills of disabled people.
However, other forms of social value can be generated by supporting people who face barriers to employment such as:
- Domestic violence survivors
- Ex-armed forces personnel
- Care leavers
- Homeless people
- School and college leavers
- Displaced talent
- Offenders Released on Temporary Licence (ROTL) and prison leavers
How Employing Ex-Offenders Generates Social Value
Let’s zoom in on just one of those groups – prison leavers.
- In 2021-22, the average annual cost of one prison place in England and Wales was £46,696
- Prison leavers who manage to find employment are far less likely to reoffend
- Yet only 26% of ex-offenders enter employment at all
It’s not hard to see that businesses which support and employ ex-offenders help the community in straightforward, cash-quantifiable ways.
That’s saying nothing of the benefits that employment and education bring in terms of quality of life, wellbeing, mental health – all of which feature prominently in the SVM.
And yet there are many obstacles to prison leavers finding work on both sides of the equation.
Many employers continue to simply screen out all applicants with criminal records in their recruitment processes.
And former prisoners often report difficulties in knowing how to go about looking for work and upskilling, especially those who experience mental health problems as well.
So even businesses that are positive about ex-offenders can find it difficult to deliver on their aspirations to employ them.
How to Build Bridges to Disadvantaged Groups
It’s not enough to just publish inclusive job adverts and hope that qualified people from groups of this sort walk through your door. Commissioning authorities will be looking for much more proactive effort with detailed plans, evidence of success in similar attempts, and commitments to clear reporting of results when considering social value proposals.
Usually, that means engaging with advocacy groups. For example:
- For people with learning difficulties: BILD, Mencap
- For people with mental health conditions: MIND, Time to Change
- For prison leavers: New Futures Network, NACRO
- For domestic violence survivors: EDAC, Women’s Aid
- For care leavers: Care Leaver Covenant
- Or specialised recruitment agencies
These bodies can help your business to understand the challenges involved in building awareness and relationships of trust with the people they represent.
One such person helped by a specialised recruitment agency is Release On Temporary License candidate, Sarah (not actual name of candidate for confidentiality reasons). Starting off as a cleaner, within a period of 6 months she got her CSCS card, SMSTS and Fire Marshall certification and was also promoted to Assistant Site Engineer.
As she puts it herself:
“For my personal journey, it’s helped me re-settle back into normal life but not only that it’s also given me a new career. Just because someone’s made a mistake, doesn’t mean they are a bad person. I’ve made a mistake and proven myself by putting it all back into my work”
There are thousands of potential employees, trainees, and skilled operatives ready to follow Sarah’s path.
How Displaced Talent is a Skills Reservoir Waiting to be Tapped
There is also an opportunity to help “displaced talent” – that is, skilled refugees who have been forced to flee their homes and are often living in low-income countries where they do not have access to safe and legal pathways to travel and practice their trades. Working here means they can resume their careers and rebuild their lives all over again. To do this you can use a specialist recruitment agency as mentioned earlier.
Take the example of Syrian refugee Nariman Al Kaddour
Nariman says:
“When refugees leave behind their homes, they don’t leave behind their skills or qualifications. I am talented and educated and there are many others like me. Being part of the displaced talent program and coming to the UK has changed my life, given me the chance to build my career and most importantly given my children a future. I don’t have to worry about them anymore.”
Capturing the Value of Helping Disadvantaged People into Work and Addressing the Social Value Model Questions
Commissioning authorities and bid managers are looking for more than just anecdotes. They want strategies that relate to their own desired outcomes as well as quantifiable results. This can only come if you are recording your social value accurately through a reporting system and using a consistent and government approved measurement framework such as the Impact Evaluation Standard which is used by HMRC.
We hope this has given you some useful information that you can take and apply to your own organisation. Lead the way; show other organisations in your industry that addressing the equality gap is a win-win for all.
Heather Cover-Kus
Heather is Head of Central Government Programme at techUK, working to represent the supplier community of tech products and services to Central Government.
Ellie Huckle
Ellie joined techUK in March 2018 as a Programme Assistant to the Public Sector team and now works as a Programme Manager for the Central Government Programme.
Annie Collings
Annie joined techUK as the Programme Manager for Cyber Security and Central Government in September 2023.
Ella Gago-Brookes
Ella joined techUK in November 2023 as a Markets Team Assistant, supporting the Justice and Emergency Services, Central Government and Financial Services Programmes.
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