Lincolnshire Co-operative – Responsible Business Champion: Employment

This initiative equips young people with the skills and confidence to gain employment.

Unipart Outstanding Employment Award

Young people often face recruitment challenges due to lack of experience and qualifications.Lincolnshire Co-operative’s‘Get into Retail’ initiative equips young people with the skills and confidence to gain employment and access training or education.

“Through our work with the Prince’s Trust, many candidates who participate in the programmes then go on to join us as colleagues enabling the business to understand more about the issues facing young people trying to gain employment.

Heather Lee, Head of People and Performance

Societal impacts

Lincolnshire Co-operative has been able to:

  • help grow the local economy through reducing unemployment and the dependency on the benefit system.
  • develop and upskill young people and keep it local by offering placements and work near to where young people live
  • have commitment has been made to deliver Get into Retail for the next 4 years at a cost of £52,000 p.a. The programme aims to recruit 240 participants. Through tracking, Lincolnshire Co-operative are able to evidence:

Business impacts

Lincolnshire Co-operative has been able to:

  • build strength into the business’s long-term future
  • provide development for colleagues
  • grow the pool of potential candidates for employment now and in the future
  • enable the business to utilise the participation in the recruitment day and mock interviews as a development tool for future leaders of the business. Over 110 colleagues have supported the nine programmes, many of whom have done so multiple times. Engaging colleagues in the programmes has enabled them to review their recruiting practices especially for entry-level positions;

Heather Lee, Head of People and Performance says, “Through our work with the Prince’s Trust, many candidates who participate in the programmes then go on to join us as colleagues enabling the business to understand more about the issues facing young people trying to gain employment. This has empowered us to reflect on our recruitment procedures and, as a result, Lincolnshire Co-op has become a more diverse recruiter and led to the introduction of our Inclusion & Diversity Policy and Mental Health training for colleagues.” Heather Lee, Head of People and Performance

together we can

JOIN US

Related content