One of the UK’s largest retailers is to use its stores and staff to help young homeless people improve their chances of finding a job.
In a major programme, Marks & Spencer will offer hundreds of homeless people work placements at stores around the country with staff acting as ‘buddies’ who guide them through the working environment.
It aims to have placed up to 200 homeless people by the end of 2002 at stores, rising to 400 in 2003.
The decision to embark on the national programme, to be announced shortly, has been made following a successful pilot scheme involving eight young people assigned to a central London store and M&S headquarters. At least one participant secured a job, though not with M&S, as a direct result of the pilot.
Business in the Community will help run the two-week placements as part of its Business Action on Homelessness programme and will provide training for M&S staff to give them an insight into the needs of homeless people. M&S will supply participants with work clothes, food and travelling expenses, and will help them to search for jobs once they finish their placement.
‘We don’t want to just cut the strings after the two weeks,’ said community involvement manager Freda Pinner, who is co-ordinating the initiative for M&S. ‘We will continue to work with the young people to help them look for jobs, and we’ll also try to keep up the buddy system so they have someone in M&S to keep in contact with.’
Pinner added: ‘We’re very clear that we’re not offering jobs, but we are offering experience through the placement, combined with other things like advice on cv writing, interview techniques and a reference. And if they want to apply for a job with us then they can do it through the normal channels like everyone else.
‘The aim is to provide training and confidence so that those in the homeless trap can then find employment and get off the streets.’
Pinner said surveys of M&S customers had shown they were particularly keen to see the company take part in more homelessness initiatives. These are now a significant part its national community involvement programme.
She added that there would be value to M&S from the new programme because staff involved ‘are likely to benefit through development of their interpersonal and management skills’.
M&S has run a food donation scheme for homeless people for the past 30 years, and each year gives 250,000 carrier bags of unsold food to homelessness charities such as Crisis and FareShare.
The company says staff at its head office were recently asked to bring in unwanted winter clothing to donate to the homeless charity Shelter – an idea that may also be adopted in a modified form at many of its 310 UK stores for Christmas 2002.