BIR Job Coaches work closely with all candidates to ensure they are upskilled in appropriate areas and equipped with the tools required to successfully move into, and sustain, employment. When Job Coaches are confident that candidates are ready to successfully take the next step, the candidate will be deemed to have achieved ‘Work Ready’ status. To date, 75 candidates have achieved Ready to Work status.
BIR has achieved its success in social impact and social value generation with just two Job Coaches supporting candidates. As BIR moves into its second year of operations it is aiming for each Job Coach to be supporting at least 75 candidates into employment. That means for each additional Job Coach employed by BIR, an additional 75 individuals can be supported into sustainable employment, generating an additional social value of approximately £1.4 million.
There is a huge opportunity to get more people into work and generate an enormous amount of social value in the UK through services like BIR. As of July 2023, there were 520,000 individuals facing unemployment in the UK for periods exceeding 6 months, this represents 35% of all individuals facing unemployment[4]. It is these individuals who are facing long term barriers to re-entering the workforce that BIR exists to support.
If those 520,000 individuals could all be supported into employment opportunities through services like BIR, it could generate a potential, total social value of more than £12 billion for individuals, communities, and the UK economy[5].
Mokhammed, 42, was forced to leave Kyiv and flee to the UK 12 months ago. He secured a role working as a warehouse operative at C&C, a premium drinks company and partner of BIR, in the London warehouse. He wants to train as a forklift operator and eventually a truck driver: “Shak helped me with my interview, with what to do and what to say. He told me to follow the history and know a little about the company, and he told me questions to prepare myself for before the interview. I was very happy when I got the job. I said to Shak: ‘Thank you for your help. I’m very happy. You helped me and it worked.’”
Shak, a Job Coach at BIR, said: “I’ve been buzzing about it since he got the job. With Mokhammed’s story, you’re living your life, and something happens, and your life gets turned upside down. But it’s about having someone who takes the time and the effort to guide you, rather than ticking boxes.”
Katy Wright, Programme Director at BIR, said: “We launched Big Issue Recruit in September 2022, with a very clear objective: to give marginalised people the same access to job opportunities as everyone else. We seized an opportunity and launched in a job market where there were as many people seeking work as there were vacancies. We worked alongside our wonderful founding partners C&C Group and Permira, placing candidates in great roles.
“Towards the end of our first year, we opened up new partnerships with national operators in sectors like hospitality and care. We have demonstrated that we can grow and adapt to a range of requirements and sectors successfully and are confident that we have a formula capable of reaching our objective.
“We have shown that, with the right approach we can get the right people with the right skills into sustainable employment. However, we are mindful of the growing skills gap in the UK. In 2024, we will be tackling this issue head on by furnishing candidates with the right skills for the current labour market and seeking partners who want to work in innovative ways to fill their vacancies and enable people with barriers to employment to find the jobs of the future.”
BIG is seeking partner employers to support this new, innovative service by using BIR to fill their vacancies and bring new candidates into the labour market. To sign up as a candidate or to learn more about how your business can support people with barriers to employment into work, visit jobs.bigissue.com, email jobs@bigissue.com or call 0207 526 3200. To view the report, visit bigissue.com/big-issue-recruit/.
[1] BIR plans to carry out a full Social Return on Investment analysis in the coming year. The social value outlined in this report has borrowed from the work of previous SROI work of Big Issue Group and the social cost/benefit value should be taken as indicative representation of BIR social value in the interim
[2] UK Labour Market Statistics – House of Commons Library (parliament.uk) (Aug to Oct 2023)
[3] https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/employer-skills-survey
[4]https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/bulletins/employmentintheuk/september2023
[5] Calculated using BIR’s social value framework.
