Newsletter, January 2015
A quick-read newsletter to let you know what kept us busy in the later stages of 2014 – and to inspire you for the early stages of 2015!
Embracing diversity
We completed a series of projects with global loyalty management company Aimia designed to engage and immerse managers in the topic of diversity. Teams took on strategy assignments with charities supporting disabled people, long-term unemployed adults, ex-offenders, young people from disadvantaged backgrounds and young women – all with a view to understanding the issues and relating them to the diversity agenda at Aimia. There’s more detail in our case study here.
Insuring the future
We’ve been helping insurance company RSA develop an employability programme for secondary school pupils. It’s made up of a series of one-day events that see small teams of RSA employees of all levels prepare and then deliver two workshops for Year 10 to 13 students, one on the insurance industry and the other on business skills. The participants from RSA have loved the challenge of engaging the pupils by developing workshops from scratch. The case study reveals more.
Working with the Smiths
We got to know Mr & Mrs Smith – not the couple next door, but the boutique hotel booking service – and created their first ever community engagement initiative. Most employees were involved in a series of skills-sharing initiatives, ranging from delivering a workshop on “Selling Yourself” for job-ready clients of St Mungo’s Broadway and staging a work experience day for young people from West London YMCA, to running a local market stall to sell veg grown by mental health charity Mind Food and promoting courses run by education charity Nova New Opportunities – all demonstrating that this kind of engagement is just as do-able for SMEs as it is for large corporates.
Keeping connecting
We’ve continued to support the Business Connector programme – long-term secondments for people from the corporate world who become ‘connectors’ in some of the UK’s most deprived communities – by delivering a Personal Development training session at the beginning of the secondment. We focus on how working in an unfamiliar environment can help to develop leadership skills and lead to career progression – experiential learning in action!
And finally, a date for your diary – webinar on Business Charity Innovation
We are excited about the potential for business to improve and develop products and services by collaborating with charities – what we call Business Charity Innovation – and I’ll be delivering a webinar on this fledgling movement for the Institute of Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability (ICRS) on Tuesday 10th February from 9.00am to 10.00am. There’s more information here – but please note, it’s for ICRS members only – perhaps a good reason to apply for membership!