SOCIAL VALUE POLICY

BDI’s Social Value Policy outlines our commitment to delivering tangible social value initiatives that deliver measurable impact and change.  Our Social Value Policy dovetails closely with other documented company policies including but not limited to Equality, Diversity & Inclusion and Environmental Sustainability, Training & Development, Ethics & Business Integrity, Anti-Bribery & Anti-Corruption and Modern Slavery, and is embedded culturally within the business from the top down.

We have developed our social value initiatives and commitments in alignment with specific focus areas within the National TOMs that are most relevant to our business, the services we provide and the communities within which we operate.

Social value is considered a critical aspect of our business and as such it is the responsibility of the Directors and our Operations Manager.  

The Directors are responsible for creating and encouraging a culture where we “give back” particularly to our employees and local communities.   Key focus areas implemented across the business include the following:

1. Tackling economic inequality by buying locally wherever possible.
2. Tackling economic inequality, achieved via training, developing skills and improving employability amongst our staff, candidates and the wider community.
3. Tackling economic inequality, by signing up to the Armed Forces Covenant (after an invitation by NHS Surrey & Borders Partnership NHS Foundation Trust) and through this guaranteeing interviews to any ex-member of the Armed Forces who applies to us for work and who meets the key criteria of the job that they are applying for.
4. Tackling economic inequality, by making an annual donation of winter clothes, toiletries, sweet treats and vouchers to HelpBristolHomeless.org who have converted a number of shipping containers into mini homes to provide shelter and support to homeless people in Bristol.  This means that beneficiaries technically have an address which makes employment, opening bank accounts and a range of other day to day activities necessary for independent living easier.  
5. Fighting climate change by implementing a number of specific actions to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions as a business.  Specific initiatives include eliminating use of plastic coffee cups from the coffee machine in our office and promoting our cycle to work scheme which is now widely used.   We are also exploring offsetting options to reduce the impact of international travel.
6. Wellbeing, particularly with a view to supporting our staff with physical & mental health and fitness support.  
7. Volunteering, (including paid volunteer days), sponsorship and charitable giving (which falls across nearly all the National TOMs).
8. International, as an organisation that works internationally, we are also committed to delivering value within the countries that we operate, including implementing strong anti-bribery and modern slavery safeguards to ensure an ethical service.

Whilst our Directors drive the culture, approve specific initiatives and review performance in this area (as well as participating personally!), the Operations Manager is responsible for implementation, monitoring and reporting across the business.   The Operations Manager liaises directly with our teams to ensure that our everyone individually understands:

• Our approach to social value and the activities that we have committed to undertaking.
• Their responsibility in delivering the social value commitments and reporting activities undertaken to the Operations Manager.
• Contributing ideas to deliver greater value both within the business and the communities we serve.
• Implementing joint social value initiatives with clients and partners as part of their day-to-day engagement.
• Consequences for failing to deliver planned social value initiatives.

The social value plan that we currently have in place is not static, and we fully expect it to develop over time as we monitor the outputs generated and identify new opportunities and partnerships to increase our offering.

We deliver our social value proposition by ensuring:

• All staff within the business understand our social value strategy and the specific commitments we have agreed to deliver in alignment with the contract.
• All staff report social value activities to the Operations Manager, so they can be recorded, analysed and reported.
• Social value activity is cohesive and not fragmented so that the maximum value can be obtained.
• Social value is an agenda point at implementation meetings and review meetings with Participating Authorities to identify opportunities for joint initiatives.

TIMED ACTION PLAN

We are committing to the following initiatives in alignment with our presence on numerous nation-wide framework agreements:

1. Providing work experience placements for students/pupils from a local school in Bristol to help them gain exposure to the world of work, make well-informed career decisions and receive post-placement support to find relevant sustainable employment.  Work experience placements will last for the period of 1 week (or 35 hours of learning) and include exposure to a range of departments within BDI Resourcing, including UK recruitment, international recruitment, compliance, administration, finance/payroll and marketing.  They will be provided with a designated “buddy” within each department who will be responsible for supporting their learning and allocating them tasks.  At the end of the week, we will provide each student with structured career guidance which includes 3 hours of consultation to discuss career opportunities relevant to their skills, interests and preferences; assist them with developing their CV and helping them develop the skills to create targeted covering letters, undertaking targeted job search activity and learning interview skills including a mock interviews.  This means that we will deliver 38 learning hours per student as shown below.

Work experience placements may take place during allocated periods of the school term or during the holidays.

All too often, work placements are unstructured, leading to the trainee undertaking mundane and repetitive tasks without gaining true exposure to the range of activities available within the business.  We aim to ensure that any such placement is truly beneficial and helps the student to achieve a measurable outcome in terms of employment within the following months.

1. Volunteering days are days that our staff are given as paid leave to participate in local volunteering activities.  We aim to develop partnerships with a minimum of 2 local organisations to provide employment support to people from disadvantaged backgrounds (e.g. local women’s refuge, local housing association).  We expect this mentoring will be delivered on a one-to-one basis for one to two hours per week over a period of 4 weeks to help people from disadvantaged backgrounds move towards employment or set up their own business enterprise

TOOLS/PROCESSES TO GATHER DATA

We gather data relating to the social value commitments we deliver via a number of channels and tools including:

• Surveys and questionnaires designed to collect feedback from stakeholders, beneficiaries, and participants.   Questionnaires can be distributed online, through email, or in person, depending on the target audience and the results will be collated, analysed and documented.
• Conducting interviews to support more in-depth exploration of social value delivered (e.g. with students participating on our work experience placements or beneficiaries of our one-to-one mentoring scheme). This qualitative approach can provide valuable insights into their experiences, perspectives, and needs to help us develop the initiatives in the future.  We continue follow up with each work placement student and mentee to understand the tangible results of our interventions (i.e. did they secure employment in the longer term?).
• Using social media within local groups to capture insights from a broader audience to engage people from a range of backgrounds.  This method can help us to connect with potential beneficiaries of our social value offerings and develop partnerships with external organisations.

REPORTING

We will provide quantitative annual reporting on our social value performance, to demonstrate that we have achieved the metrics that we committed to on an annual basis and share this with the clients with whom we work.  Any under or over performance will be explained, and this report will also refine our commitments for the following years to include any additional commitments that have arisen as a result of new initiatives or partnerships.

We also report social value in terms of SV£, using SROI analysis to understand the £ social value return on each £ invested.

Some elements of our social value is more difficult to report quantitatively e.g. the outcomes generated by our wellbeing initiatives, however in such cases we will monitor and track uptake and use anecdotal evidence in our reporting. 

FEEDBACK & IMPROVEMENT

Our Operations Manager will be responsible for collating data gathered and analysing it to identify where and how we can enhance what we do.  We will use qualitative data from beneficiaries to help us develop our services and identify additional commitments going forward.  

Qualitative data helps us identify what works well and what is not delivering the outputs we had hoped for (and therefore what needs to be improved).  

We use feedback from participants, our partners, careers teachers in the schools that we engage with and our own staff to identify opportunities to improve, refine and expand our social value initiatives and this will be analysed quarterly and annually.  

We use continuous measurement to check that changes we make actually go on to deliver the anticipated improvement and keep records throughout.

TRANSPARENCY

To achieve transparency, we:

• Ensure our social value policy is communicated openly and clearly via our website so that it resonates with the internal and external audience including the communities in which we operate.
• Make public declarations via our social media channels and other platforms, directing people to our social value policy on our website.  We will also share information relating to our commitments for the year and our performance against these on an annual basis at Framework level for transparency.

INFLUENCING STAFF, SUPPLIERS, CLIENTS AND THE COMMUNITY

We commit to influencing staff, suppliers, clients and the community through a range of channels including:

• Using values-based interviewing techniques as part of our recruitment to ensure alignment of new staff with our culture and values.  This helps us to bring on board people who genuinely want to participate in our social value strategy.
• Providing new staff with a copy of our Social Value Policy on induction, together with case studies to demonstrate how delivery of our commitments have impacted the lives of people both locally in Bristol and in the countries from which we source international candidates.  This is aimed at encouraging staff to participate and generate ideas to continuously improve and enhance our social value offering.
• Providing a copy of our Social Value Policy to clients during implementation of project-based work to encourage them to consider joint initiatives which can be added to our social value project plan.  Social value may also be an agenda point for discussion during review meetings throughout the life of any contract. 
• Incorporating social value as an area for evaluation for key suppliers during procurement.  This will include but is not limited to ensuring international suppliers provide information on fair labour practices and prevention of modern slavery and considering this when making procurement decisions.
• Incorporating social value performance metrics into objective setting for staff and measuring performance against this area during reviews and appraisals.  
• Providing incentives for staff to make suggestions on new social value initiatives which will generate greater ROI in terms of outputs – these will then be collated and shared with recognition given to anyone whose suggestions are taken forward.
• Using social media to broadcast what we achieve via blogs, case studies and video testimonials from beneficiaries to make benefits tangible and encourage others to participate.
• We will also engage with our community by sourcing goods and services locally wherever possible, volunteering on local projects and making charitable donations to local causes.

ADDITIONAL ACTIONS

In addition to the measures which relate to tackling economic inequality, we also operate initiatives that relate to wellbeing and fighting climate change as specified in separate policy documentation.