Tuesday 24 July 2012

Searching for a Spark

It was only six months ago that a contact at a charity we worked with was telling me I didn't know what I was talking about by offering advice to unemployed and under-employed people that, in the face of benefit cuts and rising costs, they might consider asking around for a bit of (extra) paid work. 'Don't you know unemployment is the highest it's been in years? There is no paid work.'

At the time, back in February, I pointed out I was recruiting homeless people in the capital for paid work as stewards in the Docklands this summer. Little did I know that another company had similar vacancies and were less likely to meet their quota of workers. We needed 40 to fill gaps at the London Pleasure Gardens. G4S needed over 10,000 for the Olympics.

It's not easy to find the right people for these roles but there's a lesson for charities, Job Centre Plus (and its corporate cronies), and giants like G4S too: There is a wealth of talent on the unemployment 'scrapheap', if you're prepared to invest in engaging them, re-activating them and working with them to become job ready. Lucky for us, (he says, tongue firmly in cheek), we're not for profit. But then it's all about the people for us, not funding targets, 'into work' 'outputs' or profits, but then that's also why we're able to engage unemployed people.

Clean Slate is working with homelessness charities in London to recruit many of those furthest from the labour market. We met our targets - and we're inducting more next week to compensate for turnover - with people with histories of homelessness. At a meeting last week, we couldn't decide if there are more than 10 or 20 thousand more job seekers where our homeless recruits came from. That's a pretty rich seam to mine for talent to match to jobs in just about any sector, but it'll cost us all that we could make (as a social enterprise recruitment agency), digging them out. That's good enough for us.

This week I'm inducting people in Bath who want to work for a new venture we've set up with our charity partners there, DHI, and a housing association, Curo. The HandyHelp Company is a different response to the fact that there aren't always jobs around and in this case, we're creating a business to create the jobs. HandyHelp is already helping bring empty homes into use and is just about to start helping with domestic help around the home and garden. Our recruits haven't necessarily been homeless but we're particularly keen to employ unemployed people who have faced significant health or housing barriers.

We'll spend the next few days working with candidates to find out what gets them going, how much they have to offer and the goals they may have. They probably don't know the answers to those questions themselves yet. But they will. And we'll watch as the light goes on and they start to believe in themselves.

All this is up for grabs and we're already talking to corporates and authorities who are starting to see how this all fits into their plans, especially around public sector procurement and tendering.

Far from being no paid work, for some people, in some places, there will be plenty of work. It just seems too many professionals who should be enabling people are defeatist or lack the appetite to roll up their sleeves and make things happen. How can we then expect unemployed people to make things happen for themselves? I hope our tiny example in East London and in Bath can be a flicker that lights a flame. Now that sounds topical...