For close to 40 years, Business in the Community has supported communities to become great places to live, work and play. We drive collective action through business leadership and create networks of responsible business to tackle the prevalent issues in places and enable positive change to take place. Through our work supporting the long-term regeneration of communities facing disadvantage – be this increasing access to good, sustainable employment, championing climate action, leading the fight against food insecurity or addressing social isolation – we bring business together with communities to take collective action.
With knife crime reaching a record high in 2020 [1] and fear of an impending surge in violent crime after lockdown is lifted [2], Business in the Community welcomes the work and the ambition of ‘Fighting Knife Crime- London’. As an organisation, we understand how critical it is to tackle the root causes of knife crime and strongly believe in the importance of collaboration to achieve this in a holistic way.
Working with our network of businesses and partners, we seek to address some of the social issues underpinning communities at risk of knife crime. We believe that creating meaningful employment is one of the most significant ways that business can contribute to the livelihoods of individuals and communities – and is for many the only sustainable route out of poverty.
We encourage businesses to target and engage disadvantaged young people and job seekers with work placement programmes and to engage in coaching and mentoring programmes.
We also ask businesses to make jobs and apprenticeships more accessible when recruiting, and to actively remove barriers such as educational qualifications, the criminal records tick-box, location, and fixed working patterns when they are not truly essential for the role, and which deter disadvantaged and diverse groups from applying. Over 150 employers, covering more than 1 million roles, have signed up to our Ban the Box campaign, giving people with criminal records a fair chance to compete for jobs by removing the tick box from application forms and instead asking about criminal convictions later in the recruitment process.
Looking forward, we have set ourselves the bold ambition to engage business volunteers in supporting 10,000 individuals through our new Boost programme, providing jobseekers with a series of coaching sessions to support their confidence and capability as they seek to join the workforce as we recover from Covid-19.
Through Boost, we will train and equip volunteers from our member companies to coach and support jobseekers around three core areas:
• Developing essential transferable and digital skills;
• Increasing their knowledge of the jobs market, and building core employability skills to improve chances of a successful job outcome; and
• Enhancing wellbeing – helping them stay positive and connected to the world of work.
Boost Coaches will support participants to navigate the breadth of existing provision available to help them build their skills and improve their chances of success, including work placements, digital skills, training and more. Businesses interested in finding out more about Boost can register their interest here.
