Work is about more than just making money – it’s about inclusion
Back in 2007, I joined the Bristol Financial Inclusion Taskforce. At the time, just after I’d left The Big Issue, Clean Slate was focused on helping jobseekers facing barriers into employment. I wanted the Taskforce to see earning as a key piece of the solution. What I didn’t previously realise was financial inclusion is quite specifically about access to banking and similar products and services but I was welcomed in because the group was equally interested in financial wellbeing and resilience.
After a few months, I noted a sense of hopelessness that we were collectively unable to compete with high interest and illegal lenders targeting the poorest parts of our community. As a social entrepreneur, I couldn’t resist the challenge. What if, I said, we published an easy-to-read, personal finance magazine and aimed to get it through every letterbox in every door on every estate under attack from profiteering creditors? The Taskforce backed the idea and, in 2008, Quids in! was born. But it didn’t stay local. By the second issue, social landlords across the country were buying it in and providing it free to their tenants. Now with guides, special issues and email service in the portfolio, we’re reaching over 160,000 low-income households.
Many, even the most desperate and overwhelmed, recognised only employment would get their head sustainably above water
During the pandemic, this work came into its own. In a way. Finally, commissioners saw financial hardship as an issue to front up to but landlords were neither in the office nor interested in sending anything that might carry the virus. Instead, we dusted off an old ‘personality quiz’ we’d published to help readers test their financial resilience and built a toolkit around it that was then deployed to help about 3,000 access a shared financial windfall of £2 million.
We also saw that money guidance was not enough. People don’t know what they don’t know and while we successfully helped people uncover those seemingly secret life hacks (like doing a benefit checker online), they were still below the poverty line. Many, even the most desperate and overwhelmed of the people we supported, recognised only employment would get their head sustainably above water. We never lecture anyone but, for those who can, only work will work.
I’ve witnessed rough sleepers turn their perceptions on their head by hearing from peers about the qualities they see
This month, we are launching a sister toolkit to the Money Health-Check we used throughout the pandemic. The Job Readiness Assessment tool shares the same, successful methodology: 20 to 25 yes/no questions relating directly and indirectly to employability, whose responses trigger a bespoke action plan to talk through with an adviser, homing in on priorities that the participant feels most positive about. There are mini-challenges to complete, quick wins to achieve, and a growing momentum to a sense that change can happen. This all leads on to increased confidence (often the biggest thing holding jobseekers back), a belief in themselves and a ‘can-do’ spirit.
The new Quiz links into the 7 Signs training we devised in the early days of Clean Slate. Having seen hundreds of homeless Big Issue vendors do a day’s work, in all weathers, no one can convince me that unemployed people are generally unemployable. What we uncovered was that it takes seven things to re-activate someone as a credible candidate for work: Understanding all they can offer employers and what drives them, an end goal that plays to both, the ability to present these coherently and demonstrate they mean business about finding work and know what employers expect, and finally being able to ask for help in the right way at the right time, not waiting for poor performance to be the cause of ‘that conversation’. I’ve witnessed rough sleepers and former substance misusers turn their perceptions on their head by hearing from peers about the skills and qualities they see. (Ask someone who isn’t in recovery about the personal attributes required to get clean of drugs and you’ll see what I mean.)
Work is more than a money-making exercise and successfully applying for work begins to change people’s lives
The new toolkit will mean we can deepen our work on financial wellbeing further. We can have open, non-judgemental conversations that let the jobseeker lead on what they need to achieve next. We change the conversation that corporate employment support companies start with and build a clear vision of the individual and all they have on offer. Rebuild their self-perception THEN start talking about CVs (that look forward, not backward) and interviews.
Employment is, for most of us, the best way to financial resilience. It absolutely fits into the financial wellbeing agenda. It must be part of our response to the cost-of-living crisis, although a few politicians have been rightly called out for clumsily suggesting ‘get a job’ is the right response when poverty is killing people on their watch. (Finding work should not be about survival, FFS.) Work is more than a money-making exercise and even the act of positively and successfully applying for work begins to change people’s lives – it’s a massive vote of confidence and a symbol of inclusion. It’s an opportunity for jobseekers to tell the world why they matter.
Image: Frankie Stone Photography
