FMJ Facilities Management magazine providing industry-specific intelligence to FM and property professionals
Arcus FM’s social value team has delivered “outstanding” results with its employability schemes that help disadvantaged people get into work.
In 2022, the facilities management provider laid out its five-year Social Value Strategy that aims to support the communities in which it operates with improved social, economic and environmental impacts.
The four main under-represented groups that Arcus FM supports as a priority within this strategy are:
- Young people with a focus on care leavers
- Those serving in or soon to be released from prison
- Ex-services personnel
- Individuals with health conditions
Having built strong relationships with a range of social value partners, Arcus FM was able to offer 72 people employment from April 2022 to March 2023.
Of the 72 individuals to whom job offers were made, 30 had been unemployed for 12 months or longer, seven were returning citizens, three were veterans and ex-service people, two were not in employment, education, or training, and one was a care leaver.
Arcus FM also reports offering 12 individuals work experience and supporting 24 career fairs and employer events including five in-prison work events helping prepare participants to re-enter the workforce upon release.
Arcus FM says it is committed to increasing year-on-year the number of job offers made, work experience provided, and career coaching to support those within their main priority groups into work.
Lisa Jardim, Head of Social Value at Arcus, commented: “As an inclusive employer, we recognise that the offer of employment to individuals in our four priority groups is a life-changing intervention Arcus has the power to make.
“This is especially true of the social value work we did in the last fiscal year which took place against the backdrop of the cost-of-living crisis. Every job offer made will have had a positive ripple effect on that individual’s life and future prospects, and on the lives of their family.
“Through the diversity of thought, experience, and knowledge that individuals from different backgrounds bring to their roles, our business can flourish. Through our social value work our current colleagues find a higher sense of purpose and meaning in their roles when mentoring and supporting individuals in our under-represented groups.”
