You can make an enormous impact with even the smallest action, if you care enough. And that’s what I love about my role as Sodexo’s Social Impact Director: our colleagues can have that impact from their very first day, because it requires absolutely no training at all.
Sodexo’s founder, Pierre Bellon, wanted his company to help the communities it worked in, and it’s done so since the 1960s. My job is to channel that principle into action by keeping everyone energised about doing the right thing, not hitting a target.
Because when you stop and think about what people really need, and where they need it, the targets take care of themselves.
I started my career in the charity sector, working with those in need such as long-term unemployed, refugees, and people with disabilities across communities identified as being disadvantaged.
During this time, Scotland was experiencing high levels of suicide among people leaving prison, and I just thought ‘right, we need to do something about that.’ I got in touch with the Scottish Government and the Scottish Prison Service and we introduced a mentoring scheme that paired current prisoners with former offenders to help prepare for a successful, safe release.
This led me to joining Sodexo from that role, progressing to acting director of the prison before heading off to Australia to set up a new prison. It was life-saving, life-changing work.
That’s why I love it when colleagues tell me their stories about how someone’s life has been changed for the better. Like the former resident of HMP Bronzefield who’d earned her hair and beauty qualification in prison, got a job in hairdressing on release, and couldn’t quite believe she’d get to treat her kids to pizza at the weekend.
That’s a story from our Starting Fresh campaign, which aims to provide job opportunities for people with convictions. And it’s what I mean when I talk about impact.
I still hear social impact and Social Value used interchangeably with Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), but they’re not the same.
CSR is critical, of course, but it’s more about compliance. An example might be employing five apprentices from a certain area to meet a contract clause. Unless you can find a way to make sure those roles go to someone from a community that faces high barriers to employment – such as a care leaver or someone with a criminal conviction – I would say “So what?”.
Supporting our sales teams to understand the demographics of the communities they want to work in is critical for us to develop solutions that meet community needs.
Because of my charity background and my passion for this work, people are often surprised that my last role here was as a Sales Director.
I don’t see a tension at all. Growing with Purpose means more likelihood of new or extended contracts, increasing opportunities for new colleagues and providing wider benefits for more communities – an opportunity for even greater impact.
Large employers like ours can also use our voice, by working with organisations like Business in the Community, the Purpose Coalition, Social Value UK, and the National Social Value Taskforce to shape the discipline for the challenges that lie ahead.
Tracking impact and value is an emerging science, and it’s really important. However, I think that metrics might be better at holding people to account than they are at driving the right behaviour.
Firstly, they can make large companies look impressive just by virtue of scale. And secondly, where’s the incentive to do something small but amazing if it won’t move that headline figure?
That’s why a culture of impact is so important. Aggregate figures will always disguise the personal stories, so we have to think people first, figures later. No one who leaps out of bed to make a difference has ever been motivated by KPIs.
Storytelling is key; this is what touches our hearts and minds.
One measure I do think about is legacy. When a contract finishes, what’s left? We’re lucky enough to enjoy long-term client partnerships, but I still want the support we provide to outlast them by some margin.
When people ask me to sum up Sodexo’s approach to social impact, I always liken it to using Google Earth. If you zoom right in to a tiny area, that’s where you find us.
Maybe we’ll be employing one prison-leaver, or perhaps marshalling a whole army of volunteers. Either way, we’ll be doing something that matters to those communities. And you can’t put a price on that.
Find out more about our Social Impact Pledge