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Innovation and determination - 5 years of Employment Enterprise

Employment Enterprise Managing Director and Founder, Jay Smith

Building upon the company’s comprehensive success and experience thus far, Director Jay Smith is more determined than ever to extol the virtues of what his business does and how it benefits society at large. "It’s a business that has principles and a philosophy, we are creating real opportunities here, with vision and aspirations."

Jay fulfils the character of a classic entrepreneur with extensive experience in a range of sectors: as an active, elected politician for eleven years - a member of Policy, Planning & Equal Opportunities Committees, Strategic Development & Planning, Licensing Authority, and Community Boards - with a background in consultancy, media and further education.  He has a particular interest in, and consequent entrepreneurial concentration on, ‘community economic development’ with employability being his speciality.

His company is an Employer Intermediary which puts jobseekers in touch with employers, working in partnership with several funding bodies, companies and councils across the Scottish central belt. What makes this business unique however is the training that it provides and the clientèle it provides for. As he points out, "We get the best for the people in society who have the least."

Over the years, Employment Enterprise has run numerous innovative projects seeking to overcome the barriers that prevent people from achieving employment. The list is extensive and includes clients from the most excluded groups: Ex-alcohol and drug misusers, Ex-Offenders, NEET Groups, Lone Parents, those with mental health issues, Numeracy and Literacy courses, Management, Leadership and Motivational courses, not to mention Business Start-Up and Community Enterprise projects. Dealing with people of all ages that have barriers to work required the Company Head Office to be based in Lanarkshire as 4 of the top 5 ranked areas for multiple deprivation are located in West Central Scotland, although recently the business has successfully begun to spread further West and into the East.

As a Councillor, Jay discovered that "the emphasis for getting people back to work should not just be on solving their problems, but allowing them to solve problems for themselves. Those who are registered unemployed and in receipt of benefits are just the tip of the iceberg. They require around ten times the amount of community support as those in employment and that’s a huge cost. As a result, the emphasis for the team, now around 30 employees, is on getting people back into employment so not only are they not claiming benefits, but they are contributing taxes to the Treasury, which enables money to go back into communities for further support. There are also knock-on benefits of better health for those employed and an increased interest in employment for the friends and relatives of the individuals they help.  Those that need most, have least, and that effects the entire population. What are needed now is positive ideas and funding. Projects like ours present a win-win situation." He describes it as a "Virtuous Cycle" along the lines of Maslow’s ‘Hierarchy of Needs’ and as current Government strategy appears to penalise those on benefits, and restrict mainstream programmes through tight guidelines - such as Job Seekers Allowance and the New Deal - Jay has found that operating as a private company offers a better chance of success and at higher rates than that of public bodies.

"We have to trade as a business in order to ensure security for the work we do and for the staff that do it. It’s a case of securing realistic funding to achieve the targets and stabilise the work we do for the future. By being a private company we have fiscal responsibility that others often do not have, and this ensures we utilise the funding to the best of our abilities, and if we don’t, we can’t secure further money for the future." The company ultimately seeks to provide best value for their clients, the participants and of course, the tax payer.

In other words, without a high success rate of getting people into sustainable employment, the business could not survive, and this forces the company to be cost-effective. Sustaining quality is the major challenge for privately run training providers. He states "our high levels of quality are maintained by a three-tiered system of classification for each client, and in this way we can run programmes that are value for money and as cost effective as possibly they can be." For example, the contract for ‘GRfW Aftercare’ which supports clients for 6 months in their job in order to help them sustain employment - nationally, public Aftercare projects sit at a success rate of around 63% after 3 months, whereas his company has a sustainability rate of 95% after 6 months, for a client base of about 400 young people. That’s 400 previously unemployed, unskilled, potential benefit claimants who have moved into, and remained in, skilled employment, training or further education.

Rather then addressing the problem directly, Government dilutes the deprivation index, a result of a target driven pressure, which is causing schools to be closed and the pupils redistributed and starter homes put in deprived areas. This means the problems are not being addressed but simply moved. Some of these areas have a massively disproportionate level of unemployment, compared to the UK as a whole, and these are the people that Employment Enterprise seeks to help, "We do not believe in penalising as a route for dealing with this. It has more to do with engaging the community and encouraging it. We need to give people an identify and self esteem, and not only give them back the belief that they can achieve success, but provide them with the opportunity to do so. There are four stages, engagement, achievement, sustaining and progression."

The benefit system and its claimants are a major political issue and few appear to be providing solutions to the problem. Under Labour, the system is arguably flawed and subject to fraud and abuse and the Conservative Party’s plan for reform also concentrates on penalties for long-term claimants, so there really needs to be a switch in emphasis from attempting to force people back to work, to encouraging and helping them back. This is what Employment Enterprise is providing. It is a successful, financially accountable example of how people and their communities can be helped back into further education or employment from a grass-roots level in a cost-effective manner and with a high success rate. The knock-on benefits from the work Employment Enterprise does are vast and, if these projects received more funding on a larger scale, it could lead to a real change for both local communities across the UK and society at large.

Jay is a change evangelist, his passion and enthusiasm for making a difference is what makes Employment Enterprise stand out in this sector and is what is driving the rapid expansion of their business. "While central government plays its part in restricting how investment in our clients can be delivered, we are well placed to utilise our staff, experience and drive to make this work best for maximum effect".

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