Social enterprise with charitable status achieves Real Living Wage for Employees ahead of 2025 target
Shaw Trust is proud to announce that it will become a Real Living Wage employer this year. As an organisation we are now the biggest charity-led social enterprise delivering customised integrated services to improve our participants’ prospects and to increase place-based and community based social investment. Our Shaw Trust Child-to-Career framework is nationally recognised and we are leaders in the employability, education, learning and skills, health and wellbeing, and children’s care sectors. As an organisation we currently provides support to nearly half a million people each year with the aim to exceed this in the year ahead.
As a result of transformation-led growth over the past two years, we are pleased to announce, as of September 2021, we will pay all our 3,000+ colleagues the Real Living Wage. This was initially a strategic objective to be achieved by 2025, but successful growth in quality service delivery has allowed us to meet this promise well in advance.
As a result, 125 colleagues’ salaries will be uplifted by becoming a Real Living Wage employer. These roles are predominately in our charity shops and social enterprises, including garden centres, nurseries, and manufacturing. Many of these areas employ people with disabilities, who face higher levels of unemployment nationally, with approximately 53% of disabled adults in employment compared to 81% of non-disabled people.
Speaking about becoming a Real Living Wage organisation, Chris Luck, the Group Chief Executive, said: “Our Shaw Trust charitable purpose is to create good and progressive work that is rewarding in every sense. We do this though the services that we provide to our commissioners, delivered by our colleagues. Their talent and commitment make the difference to our stakeholders, and it is only right that our wider values and goals is reflected in how we reward our own. It is for these reasons that I’m delighted to now be able to bring forward by some years our commitment to becoming a Real Living Wage employer. My next wish is that others will follow our example and equally reward and recognise hard work, commitment and the value our people bring.”