Hiring refugees: Guide for people professionals

Zoe Raymond All right. Hello. It’s like everyone should be filtering in, fab, so while everyone is just joining us, I’m going to ask you all to just pop in the chat who you are, where you’re kind of dialling in from today. I’m, So, I’m in the lovely CIPD offices in Wimbledon, in South London. It’s very sunny here today, not quite warm enough for lunch outside, but I’m hoping that we might get some, nice bit of weather. I can see we’ve got Elvira [phonetic](00:43) calling in from Cardiff, and we’ve got my lovely colleague Allie is in our chat, just answering questions. Oh, Emily, Emily’s here from Tent in Derbyshire. Fab. Oh, here we go. Oh, “dull but dry Stoke-on-Trent”. Sorry to hear that, Emma. At least dry is better than nothing, and I can see we’ve got rain in Plymouth. Good to see, right? Great, great to see so many of you joining us today. Oh, and lots of people. It’s obviously sunny in the southeast, fab, so like I said, I’m Zoe, and I’m here from the CIPD Trust. I’m the Programme Design Manager at the CIPD Trust, and our big thing is about how we can support the people profession to tackle barriers to work. And so today, this is one of our Inclusive Workplaces webinars. This is a bit of a trial thing for us. If you came to the one that we did about a month ago, that was about how to deal with disclosures of convictions, and today we’re talking about language barriers and how we can tackle those. And the point of these Inclusive Workplaces webinars is all about giving you some small, practical changes that you can make to your HR practice that can just make a huge difference to how inclusive your kind of your organisation is, to those barriers that are getting put up. So, yeah, the idea is that inclusion can sometimes feel like a really big thing, can’t it? And like it’s a big project, and you’ve got to run a big programme, and sometimes those things can be brilliant and can make a huge difference, but also sometimes you just want, like, a quick win. So, the idea of these webinars is just to give you some things that you could do, almost by the end of the day. You could just make those small changes, and that could make a really, really big difference. So, today we are talking about language barriers and refugees. And restarting life in a new country for a refugee can come with like all sorts of challenges, but the difficulty of learning language shouldn’t be one that prevents you from getting into work. So, today we’re just going to talk about some things that you can do to just make sure that your recruitment process and that your kind of culture internally is doing everything it can to be inclusive of those people, and obviously we are talking about refugees today, but removing language barriers can help all sorts of people from all sorts of backgrounds. Refugees aren’t the only people in the UK for whom English is a second language, but even if you think about jargon and reducing kind of levels of written English required for certain things, those, removing those barriers can help people who have other challenges with written English, say, for example, or with jargon, even you know, if you’re kind of moving into a kind of work that you’ve not worked in before, then those things can cause barriers. So, hopefully, some of the things today, although we’re focusing on refugees, will help you to think about that kind of inclusion piece more widely. So, luckily, you don’t have to hear from me too much today. We’ve got two fantastic speakers with us, so we’ve got Jen and Pete, and Jen is the director at Tent UK, and Jen, do you want to just tell us a little bit about yourself first? Jen Stobart Yeah, thanks for that. As Zoe said, I’m Jen Stobart. I lead the work of Tent Partnership for Refugees here in the UK. I’ve been doing it for about three and a half years now, and I’ll tell you more shortly, but we’re, in essence, a not-for-profit network of large businesses that are all focused on supporting refugees into work. I’m based in Somerset, currently in a little phone booth, so I’ve no idea what the weather is doing outside, but thanks everybody for joining. ZR Fab, and we’ve also got Pete Lee here, who is. Pete. I’ve got your job title written down here as Group Head of Learning and Development and Social Value Recruitment Lead, which is very long. Peter Lee It is. ZR And you’re from Omni Facilities Management. Do you want to tell us a bit about yourself and how you’ve managed to have a job title that reads to me like several job titles. PL I know, it’s a great one. So, yeah, so I’m Pete. I have this, as I say, I’m Group Lead of Learning and Development overall for the organisation. So, I support 4,500 employees across 150 sites in the UK, and the social value element comes from bringing kind of people in through an L&D initiative via the recruitment process into work. So, looking at kind of the social value for anyone that’s in NEET, refugees barriers in employment. So, I look at how L&D can get them into work and get them into a job with training and support. ZR Wow, great. Oh, yeah. When you say it, it’s obvious how those two things really marry up. Brilliant, I’m looking forward to hearing more. So, we’ve got some questions that we’re going to run through. We’re going to have a bit of a chat, and then we’d love to hear any questions from you guys in the audience. So, do put any questions that you have in the chat, and we will come to those in a minute, but first, Jen, let’s start with you. So, language is often cited by employers as one of the biggest barriers to hiring refugees. What is the hiring landscape like for refugees in the UK at the moment? And what does Tent do to support that kind of network of employers that you talked about, to overcome language barriers? JS Yeah, brilliant. Thanks, Zoe. So, yeah, just to give some framing about who we are as Tent UK, first off. So, we’re a network of over sort of 80 large employers here in the UK that are all wanting to take some steps in helping refugees into work. So, what that looks like is a range of businesses that have a range of different roles, be they starting-level entry roles or professional-level qualifications. It’s a real sort of range of different industry groups, but all are interested in taking steps towards hiring and mentoring and integrating refugees into their workforce, and Omni is one of our member companies. And the sort of role that we fill as Tent is really creating this coalition of companies that are all interested in these actions and see the benefits of what it means to include refugees into their workforce. We create an awful lot of best practice guidance and tactics for what can be done to support removal and reducing of those barriers that refugees might face to get into work, and we’re part of a sort of global organisation – we operate in 11 countries in Americas and Europe, where we’re over 500 companies. And I say that because it means we can do so much more in terms of sharing the best practice, looking at the approaches, sharing what hasn’t worked, what is working, communicating about the good stories. So, that’s sort of who we are as Tent UK. Who we’re meaning, when we talk about refugees? So, in the UK there’s about 670,000 forcibly displaced people. Now that might be someone from Ukraine who’s here as a result of the Russian invasion, it could be people from Syria, from Afghanistan, from Iran, Eritrea. It’s a range of countries and a range of reasons, but all that means, that sort of connects them, and the reason we use the term “refugee” is it’s, they’ve been forced to leave their home country, it’s not moving through choice. And the final thing I’d say, in terms of context-setting, is this piece around with a large community of people coming from diverse countries, we also see a range of different skills, experience, careers, aspirations. So, it’s really kind of looking at the range there, and in 2024, someone else in the refugee inclusion space, the Commission of Integration of Refugees, conducted quite a comprehensive survey, where they were looking at various characteristics about refugees in the UK, their interest in work, etc. And given we’re talking about language acquisition today, the one sort of point that I’d pull out from the survey respondents, about 750 people, the refugees, about 50% were learning English at their point of arrival in the UK, and about 6% felt they’d completed their learning. So, for me, this kind of really leans into our conversation that we’re going to be having, and the examples that we’re going to be hearing from Pete and from the Tent network, that’s about people who’ve arrived in the UK who want to work and are really at that beginning stage of sort of language acquisition and confidence and competence. So, you know, Zoe, you were saying we’re going to focus on some tactics and some quick wins, and some tools. It’s really to sort of speak to that community of people who are maybe at the beginning stage of feeling confident with their language skills. So, yeah, that’s a bit more about who we are and the type of work that we do. ZR Yeah, that’s great. Thank you. And yeah, I think it’s that, there is a group, isn’t there, of people who are learning, basically, and so, and yeah, I think it’s about identifying what roles are kind of best for them, and making sure that those, that the pathway into those roles is commensurate with the level of language required, absolutely. JS Yeah, I mean, I would just. I was just sort of thinking one lovely recent example from an individual who’s a refugee themselves, who was hired into one of our member companies in a customer-facing role, and they were struggling because they had limited English at the beginning, but a great attitude. So, what the company did is, they paired them with another existing employee who spoke the same language and was more confident and competent with English, and just gave that person a little bit more time to settle in. And that sort of resulted in, months later that person is still employed, has increased their language skills and confidence and is really and really receiving positive feedback. So, I think that’s a great example for us to keep hold of as we get into the more specifics. ZR Yeah, that’s fab, and I guess it’s that, that’s a such great example of how language skills are not a kind of fixed skill, are they? It’s not like your level of English is, sort of ends at the point of recruitment. Actually, work is a great way of improving your spoken English. Great! Pete, let’s hear from you. So, Omni Group has recruited over 850 refugees, which is equivalent. I’ve got here it says 23% of your staff, which is absolutely amazing. Can you tell us about language barriers that you found in the hiring process when you were kind of beginning that, and what adjustments you’ve made to reduce those and attract those, so many refugee candidates? PL Yeah, sure. So, yeah, so it’s great that we’ve got that 23%, it’s still increasing, which is really good. So, I think we’re aiming for 30% this year, which will be, which will be mammoth, but I think it, from what we’ve seen coming in, it’s people’s, as Jen said, it’s more their confidence, you know. They’re great at the ability and obviously, the job, but it is that language barrier. So, there’s some simple things that we did, so we simplified our recruitment process. So, like you were saying earlier, Zoe, we’ve removed all the jargon, we kept it very, very simple. There’s only certain bits of information we need, like name, phone number, postcode, email address. We don’t really go on CVs anymore. Here we go more on the willingness, the attitude, and the capability, which is different, and I think from that it’s then helped us kind of break down those barriers slightly. When we’re having interviews, we’re using a lot of AI to translate a lot of things. So, all our recruitment material, our websites can translate the application for them into their languages, so it just makes them feel a little bit more inclusive, and we’re also checking those, the translations as well, because we know that, you know, as great as Google is, sometimes in the old Google Translate, not everything translates correctly, or there’s not a correct translation. So, we reach into our current teams, where we’ve got refugees from, to check that the language is correct and that we’re producing it the right way. But during that process, or we’ve been very mindful on where we’re placing them. So, what we do is our recruitment team is very diverse, it matches the candidates that are coming in. So, we’ve got Ukrainians who work with, Ukrainians that work for us. We’ve also got guys from Bangladesh, Vietnamese refugees, so they’re within the teams, which has made it even better to break down that barrier. But when we’re looking at placing candidates, we know the demographics of where most of our employees work and the languages they speak, so we send them into those properties or those locations, so they’ve got kind of a buddy, and they feel a bit more relaxed and comfortable, and especially when we’re using WhatsApp for recruitment. WhatsApp is great now, because WhatsApp can translate everything, so I can have a conversation with someone in Russian and still speak English at the same time, but we’ve translated everything all the way through. So, it’s just a simple translation, and knowing that they’ve got teams that they can talk to when they get here and have those lived experiences, and again it’s, as I say, it’s that confidence thing we see from them. ZR That’s great. Can I ask a little bit about the jargon piece of that? PL Yeah. ZR So, what? What did you do to make sure that you’d removed all of the jargon, because I have definitely had conversations with people where they’ve been like, “No, no, no jargon here”, and then they come out with, you know, “stakeholders” this and “KPIs” that. What did you do to get that kind of perspective? PL And I think you’re right. The senior leadership team have got great ideas, and they come up with all these acronyms, and everything and jargon, but it’s going down and looking at our current workforce and linking in with those groups and saying what, what makes sense, what doesn’t? But it’s also us simplifying those things, like we’ve got so many different abbreviations for so many things, and we said, “Let’s just keep it simple, let’s call it what it is. Let’s not over-complicate it”. And we’ve spoken to, like, our kind of Bangladeshis, our Ukrainians, our Vietnamese, and we’ve Afghans, and we’ve gone, “Does this make sense to you?” And they’ve gone, “No, it doesn’t”, or “Yes, it does”. And that’s how we’ve adjusted it, is by going back to the workforce and asking those questions, because they’re our asset, they’re our people, and without them. Don’t get me wrong, HR and senior teams have got great ideas, but they need to be realistic, and it needs to be, it needs to be people-centred when it comes to doing these things. JS I mean, I’d love to sort of build on that, because I think one of the things I know, and you’ve mentioned it, is that you’ve sort of taken the CV out of the requirements. PL Yeah. JS You know, for your recruitment process. I’m imagining others listening to this are thinking that would be a stretch too far for them at this point, but you know, one of the things that we do see across industries, across sectors, is; just think about, is the language that is contained in your job adverts, in your job description that is required to navigate the recruitment process. Is that the same level that’s needed to perform the job? Right? It’s a simple sort of question, but I think when we frame it in that way, it’s one of the biggest sort of “penny drop” moments, in terms of just, you know, it’s, it is like, “Would my mum understand this job?”. You know, would somebody else who’s not in our space understand what we’re talking about here? And that is one of the biggest barriers that we do see, and actually one of the biggest recommendations I’d make is; just think about simplifying your language, from the first point that you’re going to reach out to any refugee candidate through the process. And yes, not everybody’s going to be able to strip it back entirely. PL No. JS But really just, just kind of take it through that lens of some candidates you’re going to want to reach, who won’t be fully confident and won’t be fully competent with English at the moment. So, what can you do to just make it more accessible? PL Yeah, great. ZR Yeah, and I guess this is something that AI can be quite useful for as well, can’t it? If you can just plug stuff in and say, “make this more simple, make this for a lower reading level”, and it will give you something. Obviously, you have to sense-check all of that, and. PL You do, yeah, I think, yeah, because what we’ve done is we obviously use AI, but it’s using those prompts correctly as well, making sure that you’re capturing the correct demographic you’re looking for and what you want it to do, and it is keeping it simple, and it is refining that language, so it’s not over complicated. So, it’s then looking at, you know, as you’re saying that sometimes there’s too much in a job advert and it gets too complicated and people get lost and it’s crazy, but I think if you simplify it, that’s fine, because you’re going to be asking questions in the interview anyway. If you’re still using CVs, that’s great. I wouldn’t necessarily, if we do, we probably ask for the last two years experience, but I think we’ve also got to realise that some of the refugees that are coming in, they come from different jobs and different backgrounds that can’t translate at the moment into the current UK labour market. So, although someone may be a biologist and they’ve come to do cleaning, we’re not going to say, “Well, you’re over-qualified”. We’re going to still use them and support them into work while they look to do what they need to do, but I think sometimes people get a little bit, you know, “Oh, you’re a biologist, but you’re applying for this” Again, it’s building their confidence in getting into work and removing those barriers. ZR Yeah, I think that’s a great point, isn’t it? That people might be applying for roles that are quite different from their background because they’ve got this kind of English gap, as it were, in terms of, you know, they need to improve their spoken English or written English, and that, you know, they, while they’re doing that, they obviously need to work, like we all do, so yeah. They might be applying for roles that don’t quite match. JS Yeah, we’ll sort of get into it as we talk more about the sort of integration and the onboarding sort of phase of language acquisition, but just to out the thing that probably we know from our own experience, and we definitely see through the work that we do. Feeling, acquiring language, feeling more confident in the language, that happens much more rapidly when you’re surrounded by people speaking, in our instance, English, right? So, we absolutely see that in all the sectors that we work in, that sort of acquisition of skills with English language. Yes, there are things that we can do before a person starts and during the recruitment, but it’s also really being intentional about once that person has started, how can we help them supercharge their confidence and their kind of language skills? Because we know it really happens a lot quicker once you’re working and connected with your colleagues. ZR Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And Pete, do you maybe want to tell us about examples of tweaks you’ve made to that onboarding process, and how did you kind of increase that sense of belonging? I guess, obviously you’ve mentioned a few things, but maybe you could tell us a bit more about that. Once people were in, what next? PL Yeah, so once they’re in, it’s yes, we either buddy them up or put them in locations where they feel comfortable, where people can speak their own language, but we do offer English classes as well. And although we tend to have a kind of, you know, “speak English within the team”, it supports them anyway, because we’re helping them learn those words. So, there’s a lot of things that we’ve translated. We have our own internal English lessons that we do, that we provide to help them understand the English terms, but I think it’s more how we’re putting everything together. A lot of people are more visual, so we’re going more visual, and then for verbal, we’re helping break down that barrier, but it’s just simplifying all the forms as well, because some forms are too complicated. So, we simplified them a little bit. Every communication we send out is in multiple languages, and I think that’s been the greatest thing, is yes, they want to learn English, they want to improve – happy to support, but just having their stuff in their own language is a benefit, and that’s the same as if we have somebody that’s, we’ve got an apprentice today, upstairs in training, and we have a deaf interpreter for her, and some of the team can do some BSL. So, having an interpreter there has made them more inclusive within the group. So, it’s just looking at that, that availability to make them more inclusive. So, from the forms being reduced to, translated into languages, all of our training is translated. So, they can read it in their own language, but they also can go back and read it into English itself. We have audio as well, so if they need audio, it’s in audio versions as well. So, we’ve made sure that we’ve really utilised the AI element to build that in and support, and that, it doesn’t cost a lot, to be honest. ZR That’s great to hear, and I guess just that, because that beginning a new job can be so full-on, can’t it? And there’s so much that you kind of have to do, and yeah. So, really great to hear that you’ve found ways to just make that transition so much easier. And Jen, I guess you know, obviously you’ve got a wealth of examples from Tent UK’s network. Do you have any examples of best practice and what’s worked, I guess, in sectors that aren’t in kind of facilities like Peter’s? JS Yeah, I mean, sort of obviously listening to the conversation and hearing the examples. So, let me try and weave some other points that we haven’t necessarily covered so far. If I think about the manufacturing industry and sector, which we’ve sort of done quite a lot of work with, because they will have quite a lot of more entry-level starting roles, which, as we said, can be a great launchpad, a starting point for somebody when they’re newly arrived in the UK. One of the things I think we’ve touched upon, but that’s really helpful when thinking about preparing to welcome some colleagues of a refugee background, is really think about signage and visuals around the place. So, not just exit signs, but if you’re using equipment, what is there that’s like an infographic diagram, you know, around workstations at machineries, etc. And actually, just thinking about that in all workplaces, I think, can be really helpful. You know, it does speak to the different ways that people learn and process information, but it absolutely reduces a barrier in terms of greater confidence of being able to see visual reminders, particularly around health and safety considerations. And then, one of the things that we’ve seen companies do is, once they’ve, are going to having Zoe, as a refugee, come and join their workforce, they might be able to send a package of information before Zoe starts at day one, that has some common terms that they will be seeing, that has some explanation of jargon, that gives a little bit more clarity for that person before they start and come in on the first day. And that, of course, gives somebody a chance to translate it some more, be more familiar themselves, and just sort of feel more confident before they actually start on day one. If I sort of move on then into that sort of onboarding, settling in window, which we know is really important, and Pete was speaking to, but that first sort of three months of settling into a new job is really important. So, you know to expand upon like a buddy programme. This, as we know, is quite a common tool in terms of onboarding across any workforce, for any sort of people. What we find is really helpful with the refugee sort of component is, can that buddy speak your same first language or one of the languages that you may speak? And so, that you have that chance to just really connect there together, or if you’re recruiting for a group of people at one time, can you sort of create a connection within that group of people with somebody who maybe already works there in another role, who speaks the same languages as you speak. So, I think you know we’re understandably leaning into technology and AI, and that is really helpful in a lot of ways, and let’s keep hold of the fact of the human connection that we have as well. I think it comes out from the examples from Omni. It definitely comes out elsewhere. So, can some small investments be made in terms of lunchtime conversational clubs, or kind of thinking about the languages spoken on particular shifts or roles, and pairing that with a new refugee starter? They can be really impactful and really help with that sense of belonging and connection as well. And then the other thing that sort of, I guess, the final thing I’d offer with, with an eye on time, is really just. Peter said that you’re doing it at Omni, but this bit around thinking about on-going language classes. So, what can be done, either in terms of on-site language classes, or in terms of buddy programmes, or if you’re an organization that works to shift patterns. Can you think about accommodating a particular shift pattern, so someone can go to the local college for on-going language learning. So, really just sort of thinking about some of those accommodations can really help to fast track the language skills as well, ZR Yeah, that’s great, and great to hear that kind of human connection that kind of needs to be so front and centre, doesn’t it? Because you know we know that that is one of the things that makes a huge difference in job satisfaction. JS Yeah. ZR It’s a big factor in how people feel about work generally, so you know you’ve got to be thinking about that if you’re, you know, you’re in HR. So, yeah, why wouldn’t you also be thinking about it in this context? Absolutely, and I love the sending a pack with information. I think just being able to demonstrate that you, as an employer, understand that there is jargon that you have internally, that there are words that you use that mean certain things that people might be unfamiliar with, that like I think just having the humility to sort of see those things and then present them back to someone new, I think, is like it just makes quite a big statement to begin with. So, yeah, really, really great to hear that that’s kind of going on. Great. OK, so I guess another kind of question is; what benefits can a company experience if they make the effort to be more inclusive of refugees still learning English? Jen, do you want to kick off with that to begin with? JS Yeah, sure. So, I was just mentioning some of the sort of tactics and examples that we’ve seen for the manufacturing sector, because that’s sort of one of the more recent resources that we’ve created at Tent for our companies, and throughout the companies that we sort of spoke to and got the insights and information from, you know, quite consistently, they were reflecting that actually the small investments that you make and the small adjustments to include people who are learning English is far more cost-effective than sort of higher, you know, turnover and loss of staff because of these language barriers. So, I think that’s a really helpful thing for us all to keep hold of, and for us all to think about when we’re thinking of other stakeholders, internal within our organisations who might not be quite in the same place that we are. So, you know making these small adjustments really helps make a difference with the stronger retention rate of language-learners, and just sort of briefly overall in terms of the impact of including refugees, it’s an area that Tent focuses upon, and we hear really consistently that if you can support a refugee in those first few months, which is why we’re both talking about this onboarding window quite so much. Then that really can help to increase the retention rate, and we see higher retention rates of refugees as compared to non-refugees. We also sort of really see a boost in employee engagement of everybody when a company is intentionally reducing the barriers to include refugees, and that also kind of comes across with consumers, if you’re a consumer-facing brand. So, there’s really clear evidence, specific to the refugee community, I guess, that complements the wider knowledge that we have around the benefits of having diverse and inclusive workforces, but I’m sort of speaking at a very generic level, but I don’t know, Peter, if you’ve got anything else that you’d add specifically from your side. PL Yeah, I think you know, for us, you know, we’ve seen a very big impact of removing that, adding those kind of options for language in there, and that has, you know, really. One, it’s opened up a bigger talent pool, because when we’re speaking to these guys and they can see that we’re making the effort, we’re talking to them, we’re helping them, we’re matching them with people that speak their languages, and they feel more engaged as barriers are being removed. So, we get more retention from them, but opens up the talent pool more, because then they bring friends and family and say, “Oh, I have these friends and family that want to work with us”, so we see just a bigger, more engagement, and I think, as well, being in the industry, working in hospitality and FM, we take a lot of hotels over. So, when we’ll go into TUPE meetings, and obviously TUPE meetings are key, lots of things do go on in those TUPE meetings, we actually can see from the ELIs kind of who’s in that session. So, we’ll go and take people that speak those languages and we bring them to those sessions, and I think that’s key, because we. In the world of HR, we need to make sure that we reach everybody and we’re all people-centred, but again, as Jen was saying, have that kind of actual human being there, as well as AI, and AI is great. I love it, but we do need those human elements. So, even when we’re doing job fairs, we’ll take those nationality speakers with us, so it becomes more inclusive. They can talk to them, they feel more relaxed, and I think that’s where you get the buy-in. I think that’s where we’ve seen the biggest impact, is refugees are starting to look at it and go, actually, if you’re, if you’re taking the time to have people in your company to come and speak to us and give us examples and connect with us, they’ll engage more. And I think that’s where our 23% has increased, because I remember when it was like 10/15% and it’s just grown, and that’s because we’re breaking down those barriers, and there’s even chances where some of our team have asked to learn, say, Ukrainian or learn Arabic, or, you know, other languages they can help communicate with simple words. And we’re finding because people are more inclusive, they’re teaching each other as well. So, I go to some hotels and people are speaking in, you know, Russian or Vietnamese or Bangladeshi, and I’m like, “What are you all saying? How did you learn that?” And they’re like, “Oh, because we’re all talking together”. So, it’s all about that inclusivity part, and I think when you start breaking down those barriers and such and make everything accessible, it becomes a lot more easier, but yeah, we see a bigger impact from engagement when people can see an employer is doing their best to support their language, and you know, not say “English is a must, you have to speak perfect English”. If you’ve got basic English, for us, it’s fine, we can build the rest with them. JS And I’d sort of layer on it. Sorry, Zoe, that what you’re also speaking to there is something we see is really important, is celebrating the range of languages, celebrate language acquisition, celebrate the fact that you’ve got a, you know, you work in a place where there are 30 languages that are spoken, and sort of normalise that, but you know, from the sort of refugee-specific point, you can also, you know, if you know there’s a colleague who’s going to college and still learning English, celebrate that, create a moment as the team, if they get to the next level, or something like that. It just really, there’s something that is very intangible but very impactful when somebody realises that this element about them, they might already speak five languages or two languages, or but that’s celebrated and it’s valued within a workforce, that’s magic, right? PL Yeah, we’ve just had yesterday, we did International Potluck Day. So, that was great, because people have brought their own food from their own countries, head office, they all dressed up in traditional clothing. We found out so much about different things, learned different words, and some of the team that here are actually. We feel a bit more included, because we can talk about our culture, talk about who we are. Everybody, that’s nothing, because everybody’s bringing something, it’s just a nice little potluck. Oh, have you got me? ZR Yeah, you froze briefly, but you’re back now. PL Yeah, so just having that little event. It doesn’t cost anything, but it’s a great way for everybody to feel included and learn from those kind of things. So, yeah, culture is a big thing as well. ZR Yeah, I think that’s, yeah, it’s kind of so key, isn’t it? It’s that sort of it’s treating people as individuals, isn’t it? It’s that kind of core of so much good HR practice that if you, if you actually just celebrate what makes each person different, you can like work wonders in a lot of ways. Great, right. Well, we’ve had, we’ve had a question come in from the chat. So, Emily has asked, “For those refugees not yet in work, what do you think are their greatest support requirements to get into work, aside from the language barrier?” Jen, do you want to take that, to start off with? JS Yeah, so the question was for those people that are not yet in work, what can be done to support? ZR Beyond language? JS Beyond language. ZR Yeah, so what are their other barriers? JS So, currently there’s quite a challenge with accommodation. That can be really quite point of fragility for a lot of people in terms of finding stable housing and accommodation. We look at that from the perspective of working with employers to just think about what information are you asking in terms of the address and what is it that your kind of requirements are from a person there. And then I think on a very human level, there’s just something about again the extension of community and thinking what’s going on, in terms of being inclusive of refugees that you might have in your community who aren’t yet eligible to work, but there’s various sort of befriending and outreach programmes, and that can be really impactful as well, in terms of just helping to communicate about UK norms and cultural behaviours that can really help to bridge that gap when somebody is coming into work. And the final thing that I’d probably say is, don’t underestimate the power of your own network, right? So, there’s something that we all might take for granted if we’ve lived in the UK for a long time, or for a while. It’s knowing how to reach out for different services, different support It’s having professional networks, it’s knowing how to navigate the job market. So, those are things that if some of the sort of hierarchy of needs of a refugee or asylum-seeker are a bit more stable, then they’re going to want to think about, what’s coming next, because we know the importance of what a job offers, but yeah. ZR What about you, Pete? Have you seen anything kind of as the employer in terms of barriers that people have been facing, kind of coming in? PL Yeah. I think it is that accommodation. Luckily, we’re able to offer some accommodation in some of our locations, which is not too bad, but I think, as well, it’s that confidence of it’s. If people are unsure about work, we might reach out to DWP, and we’ll go and we’ll speak to people, and we’ve done it before, where we’ve done, you know, we’ve taken some of the team to do interview skills, and again, kind of what the working world is actually going to look like, you know, their expectation versus the employer’s expectations, because it is a big minefield, the working world, and some of them may not feel that they’re ready yet. So, we, where we can, we might do pre-employability programmes, and we link into our social value kind of network to see what we can tie in with. We’ve got some guys upstairs this week who have come from DWP that are refugees that are doing kind of a facilities management induction this week, so that’s, that’s pretty good, but I think it’s about giving some people those kind of pre-employability skills, and that’s just taking some time out to go and spend, you know, a few hours or half a day at, say DWP, or in an event with Tent. Just to provide those basic skills for people to overcome applying for a job, because you’ll see them go round with their CVs at job fairs, and they’re not too sure, and they’re very apprehensive, and they’re scared or nervous about how to ask for a job and what they do to apply. So, I think providing those initial employability skills is fundamental, because there are a lot of people out there that still are unsure of what the working world is like, and how to approach it but also. JS And then. PL I was going to say it’s also looking at the wraparound support. So, if someone’s got qualifications that don’t translate, how can they be translated? And it’s just, it’s just how you give that wraparound support in that first few months. If it’s childcare issues, are they aware of what benefits they can get, what support they can get from Universal Credit? So, it’s having that linked in, so that they get that extra support along the way. JS And I sort of wanted to contribute something as I was listening to sort of Peter. One of the other barriers that refugees might face, if they come from a group who are highly qualified, maybe worked in professional roles in their home country, a barrier that can be faced here is qualification recognition. So, not all qualifications are brought over from a home country into the UK, and we sort of touched upon that earlier, about, you know, don’t feel that somebody is overqualified for a role, because at times there can be different choices a person’s making, to move into retail or hospitality rather than into accounting, but where there are cases, and there are many, where people are wanting to get to a role that’s commensurate with their previous experience that can also feel like quite a barrier. So, we might work with companies to think about what pathway is there for that person to come in and work in a similar role or a similar team and think about how they get the UK experience and maybe work towards their UK qualification whilst they’re in a similar role. So, yeah, that can kind of just speak to some of the more sort of professional qualified, qualified positions as well. ZR Great, yeah, and the confidence thing that you were talking about, Pete, brings us on to a different question that we’ve had, which is; sometimes refugees might feel scared to communicate when they’re first starting in a new job. What can be done to kind of support them to, I guess, feel confident. Obviously, you’ve talked a bit about buddying up with people speaking the language that they speak. Let’s say that you don’t have anyone that speaks that language, what else could you do, or what could you do differently? PL I think it’s realising that you know it’s employing, treating the individual with respect and time and understanding that you know English isn’t their first language, they are going to struggle slightly. So, we take a little bit of time with them, but we keep reassuring them that don’t worry, you’ll get it, it’s OK, you know. It’s just that reassurance, because everybody has. You know, people are great and capable, but again, it’s are they, can they ask the questions, do they know what to do? So we, we tend to pull out, unfortunately, the Google Translate if they don’t, if needed, or we call someone in recruitment and go, “Can you translate for me?”. But I think with the confidence side, it’s just reassuring them that it’s OK, they can get there. It’s going to take a bit of time, but we’re there to support them, and then we can link them back into the recruiters or somebody within the team that will, that can have a chat with them if they’re, if they’re not sure, or they’re unconfident. And we have an open door policy at head office, so you know that means that they can come in anytime during the week if they have a question or query and speak to the team. And I think that, that’s key because when they’re on their days off, we have people come in and they’re not sure about their pay slips and not sure about what they’re asked for in their job, they’re not sure on certain things and they’ll just pop in and they’ll have that conversation and I think that’s the key thing, because they feel that they’re still connected, helps build their confidence, but I think it’s just the reassurance. Because if you’re reassuring somebody, saying, “Yeah, you’ll get it, don’t worry, it’s taking a bit of time”, instead of, you know, being so assertive and demanding from them, but give them that time to settle in, that’s the key thing, that, as, as Jen said, that first three months is key to that settling in and that belonging, but include them in everything, include them in conversations, include them in activities. If it’s a, if you’re going out for a night, for a drink after work, take them for a drink after work. You know it’s just about inclusivity within the team. I think. ZR Yeah, great, that’s great. Thank you so much. Right, I can see that we are running out of time. So, yeah, I, we’ve got a feedback survey that we’d like you guys to fill out. So, I think one of my colleagues will share that in the chat, and while everyone is looking at that, I’m going to ask you, Pete and Jen, to give us like one – what is one easy action that people can just start doing straight away? Jen, do you want to start? JS I was going to say Pete can start this time. PL OK, I would say reach into your current employee network. Your current employees are your kind of hidden pixie dust in this. They’re the ones that can help you structure those language barrier removals; they’re the best ones to speak to. So, yes, the SLT team are great. Yes, we’re great in HR, but actually go back to the shop floor and use them, because they are your golden tickets and they are your pixie dust to fix some of those issues. ZR Love it. Great. Jen? JS And my one really is back to a point I’ve made before. Look at your job descriptions, look at the language you’re using. What’s that first contact point with a potential candidate and colleague? And really just try and simplify and strip it back as much as you can. And you know, because of the work I’m doing, I come at it from a refugee perspective, but we know that will be beneficial for the majority of the candidates you’re looking to reach as well. So, just simplify your language as much as you can. ZR Yeah, great. I would second that. I always love to see it when organisations have really stripped all their stuff out and been really considerate about that. Well, I guess all that is left for me to do is just to say a huge “thank you” to you, Pete and Jen. It’s been a really great conversation. Can see lots of things going on in the chat, so I think you’ve, you’ve really helped some of our network to think about how they can do things differently. And yeah, thank you very much. JS Thanks everybody. PL Thanks.