Jessica Ridgewell : 0:00
Supporting refugee communities into work isn't just a moral thing to do, isn't just something that businesses should do to feel responsible and to address social challenges, but actually it's really crucial for our economy and it makes business sense. We're talking about refugee communities who have huge amounts of skills and experience to bring to the UK economy and I think that businesses really need to take that seriously and invest.
Lauren Roberts : 0:32
You've just listened to a clip from the latest episode of the Foundation and Friends podcast. Hi, I'm Lennon Roberts, advocacy Lead at the City & Guilds Foundation. Today, I'm delighted to be joined by Jessica Ridgewell, head of Corporate Partnerships at Breaking Barriers, to discuss how businesses can work to support refugees into meaningful employment and break down some of the barriers they may face. Hi, jess, thank you so much for joining me today on our Foundation and Friends podcast. I wonder if you could just start off by telling us just a little bit about the mission you have at Breaking Barriers.
Jessica Ridgewell: 1:02
Thanks so much for having us. So Breaking Barriers is a refugee employment charity and I get the very lucky role of working with our refugee employment services across the UK and partnering with businesses to support our refugee clients. What we're doing at Breaking Barriers is supporting people from refugee backgrounds who find themselves here in the UK, who have either fled their homes because of war persecution and they're seeking refuge, but rebuilding their lives in the UK. They're facing a lot of challenges and a lot of barriers. So Breaking Barriers exists to support our refugee clients to overcome these, with particular access to employment and education.
Lauren Roberts: 1:45
We've been super privileged and proud to work on several different programmes with you guys. Now Can you tell us about some of those barriers that refugees and asylum seekers face in the UK when trying to access employment?
Jessica Ridgewell: 1:57
So the UK is home to nearly 400,000 refugees. Across the UK and even in the refugee communities we work with, we're supporting people from nearly 80 different countries. So there really is such a wide spectrum of people that we're supporting and they come with a huge amount of skills, experience. But they're also facing multiple challenges when rebuilding their lives here in the UK. So, for example, they might be facing language barriers and they're also going through our asylum process and during that time they are often subjected to moving around the country. Once they go through that process and their application is either rejected or accepted when it's accepted, at that point they get the right to work. A lot of the refugee communities have likely been going through that asylum application for a really long time.
Jessica Ridgewell: 2:54
Once our refugee clients have that right to work, unfortunately the barriers and the challenges don't stop there.
Jessica Ridgewell: 3:00
So often when they're going to access work and employment, they really don't know where to start, so they have limited knowledge of the UK labour market.
Jessica Ridgewell: 3:10
Also, when they're perhaps at a point where they can apply for work, these gaps on the CVs and also from an employer side, perhaps not understanding their refugee status or the experiences and challenges they've faced there will be that element of employer bias or discrimination amongst refugee communities. So limited English language, a limited knowledge of the UK job market, facing employer kind of discrimination and biases, alongside navigating the other challenges to housing and healthcare, mean that there are really high unemployment rates amongst refugees and I think from the time that I've been at Breaking Barriers, one of the common misconceptions is that refugees don't have skills and experience. But in our experience, nearly half of our refugee clients have higher education. A large portion of our clients have three to five years plus work experience. So we're talking about a group of people that are highly educated, highly skilled and have some of the highest levels of determination and resilience to want to work. Yet when we look at the figures, refugees are four times more likely to be unemployed than the national average.
Lauren Roberts: 4:27
Thank you, jess. Just speaking of the work that we've done together, I can certainly echo that level of determination and highly skilled individuals that our programmes, mainly through yourself, have introduced us to. So thank you for kind of setting the landscape there for us. You touched on kind of various obstacles and barriers there in the different sectors that have to come together to actually address refugee unemployment. I wondered what your view was on the role the private sector has in addressing this.
Jessica Ridgewell: 4:58
We could not do the work we do supporting refugees into employment, education and training without partnering with the private sector. There are some key reasons why that plays out. Some of them are obvious that employers in the UK and the private sector do have jobs and things that they can offer in terms of employment. A lot of the employers and businesses that we've worked with and where we've seen successes in recent years is when private sector and employers have been able to recognise that refugee candidates can support their hiring needs. They've been able to look at their adjusting their recruitment practices and policies to be more inclusive and welcoming of people from a refugee background.
Jessica Ridgewell: 5:43
I think the private sector can definitely do more in this space, especially when we're looking at talent acquisition, reaching new marginalized communities to ensure we're increasing their access to work, but also looking at diversity, equity, inclusion as well, and ensuring that refugee communities are part of those strategies within businesses. So that's something that's very practical from an employment perspective. But what the private sector have enabled the refugee community and refugee stakeholders and charities to do is obviously all important funding. We can't exist without funding. The need for our services is increasing. We have waiting lists where refugees are waiting to access our employment education services. And, finally, the value that I see with the private sector is the staff and employees at businesses, so they have a huge amount to offer skills, expertise, networks and these are things that can really support our refugee clients or refugee candidates to build their confidence, motivation and knowledge that gets them that bit further on their journey to job readiness.
Lauren Roberts: 6:52
Thanks, Jess, I wonder if you could share with us some kind of practical best practice, initiatives or programmes that you've seen with your clients in the past, and also, how do businesses really embed this as part of their strategies and make sure their activities are sustainable or allowing refugees to thrive?
Jessica Ridgewell: 7:10
It's a great question because I think a lot of businesses might have the intention to support refugee communities or see the need, but a lot of the time in my role, the first question or barrier for businesses is always we don't know how, we don't know where to start. And then I think it's really important that when a business does commit, they understand what their long-term commitments and impact can be as well. So breaking barriers, because we have been really fortunate to have support from 50 plus different businesses from a whole variety of sectors. Last year we launched our Business Behind Refugees movement. So the Business Behind Refugees movement brings our corporate partners together to share their learnings and best practices and experiences, whether that's through a series of events and activities and networking. The Business Behind Refugees movement also marks really important moments in the UK calendar, such as Refugee Week, and these are really good milestones for us to be able to amplify and celebrate what we're doing and to help educate businesses and their employees on how they can support refugees. So a number of practical examples that are taking place are events to build awareness of the challenges refugees face and to, importantly, amplify refugee voices, to use lived experience to inform employees and businesses of what refugees need and what their challenges are in their own words. So a really good example of this is the podcast that we're recording right now. So huge thanks to City & Guilds for championing marginalized communities like refugees, recognizing that there is more to say on this topic. There is more to do to shine a light on the barriers that they are facing and there's certainly a lot more the listeners and the private sector can do to support refugees.
Jessica Ridgewell: 9:02
Also, across a number of our corporate partners this month we're hosting other events that link into some of their own corporate social responsibility themes. So, for example, bmy melon are hosting an event which runs a lot on social mobility and bringing their charity partners together, of which breaking barriers will talk about the challenges that refugees face. We also partner with a lot of employee resource groups. So, for example, our partner cummings their pride Network is going to be hosting an event this month that talks about the experiences of refugees, with a particular lens on intersectionality and the LGBTQ plus communities. So there's lots going on to build that first step of awareness and education and understanding. To build that first step of awareness and education and understanding, breaking Barriers we have a really great 25-minute documentary which shares the stories of incredible people going through the experience of rebuilding their lives here in the UK. So that first step of education, understanding and awareness and then the second action really is starting to think about how practically your business can support people on their journey to employment. So over the next few weeks, for example, our partners, Microsoft and LinkedIn are going to be hosting CVs and interview skills workshops. Their staff are going to partner and mentor directly with our refugee clients to be able to build their awareness, confidence and knowledge of the UK labour market and how to position yourself, your CV, how to improve your interview skills. And then, finally, in terms of businesses taking action to identify roles within their organisations where they can open up to refugee candidates.
Jessica Ridgewell: 10:45
We work with businesses such as IKEA, who obviously have a really large national footprint. They have a lot of entry-level roles which you might describe as things like retail assistance, customer service. These are brilliant roles for people looking for their first job in the UK to be able to improve their English language, to be able to improve their confidence, their understanding of the UK workplace. So to improve their English language, to be able to improve their confidence, their understanding of the UK workplace. So really great roles to give someone that first step. And we also work with businesses such as Mayor Brown, an international law firm, where we are placing refugee clients who have got experience in the legal sector but perhaps that's overseas experience. They're looking for their first bit of experience here in the UK that aligns with their own skill set, experience and aspirations. So some very practical things to do there. But obviously the end goal there is always to understand how you can hire, recruit and retain refugee talent. So a lot of the initiatives that we do with businesses do just that.
Lauren Roberts: 11:59
Thank you, jess. Just to echo everything you said, I think that two parts of me on that whole kind of not reinventing the wheel and kind of working with like-minded organisations who have a similar goal, to kind of test out and to take learnings from other individuals who might be slightly further along, and that second point just around kind of not being the experts in everything, of understanding that we have great opportunities and expertise in-house, but working with on the ground charities who do amazing work like yourselves and understand clients in and out makes the process so much smoother. Clients in and out makes the process so much smoother. I just wanted to briefly touch on the ever-evolving context of the world of work and what kind of role that you think businesses can actually play in kind of the responsible business arena and refugee support over the next few years. What kind of trends should businesses be looking at that will allow them to support refugees into employment?
Jessica Ridgewell: 12:38
Yeah, I think it starts as well from what you just mentioned, Lauren, in terms of collaboration, charities and businesses can't do this alone, and you know we're already facing a lot of challenges in today's market, let alone what the future of work holds for us. So I think, in terms of some of the trends that we're noticing for refugee communities and working with businesses, is that the labour market is of evolving, as it always is, but, in particular, we are very wary about those job seekers who are marginalised or face extra barriers, being left behind even further. For example, some of the emerging themes we're seeing with the conversations we're having with employees about the future of work and what might be needed for refugee job seekers. So AI is obviously the buzz word in the year. I think I've had to gone through a single week without talking to a business about AI and we should be using AI from an operational perspective to increase our efficiencies, how it might impact job seekers in the way that they access employment opportunities and online platforms, and how we as employees are supposed to be using AI in order to do our jobs. So I think there needs to be more done around improving digital access and skills refugee candidates to ensure that they are evolving with that job market as well.
Jessica Ridgewell: 13:59
Another theme that we're seeing is to see green skills and energy transition and a lot of organisations' goals to net zero, which is obviously incredibly important.
Jessica Ridgewell: 14:08
But we think that actually for refugee candidates who are looking to upskill or reskill to meet those emerging opportunities, that there could be some real scope to ensure that refugee candidates get opportunities in that space as well.
Jessica Ridgewell: 14:24
And then, not to mention skill shortages and labour shortages.
Jessica Ridgewell: 14:28
Over the last couple of years we've worked a lot in the hospitality and retail sectors as they faced labour shortages and seeing where refugee candidates can use the skills that they've got to bring to those roles or indeed, as I mentioned earlier, having roles that are really important for their first job to integrate into the UK.
Jessica Ridgewell: 14:46
So I think conversations with the private sector, with employers, about making sure that refugee candidates don't get left behind, but actually that we see it as an opportunity. We've got a huge amount of untapped potential and a workforce here that can retrain upskilled and really add value to our skill shortages. So I think it's as much of a challenge as it is an opportunity and I think that only when we look to partner with businesses we are thinking about the long term and making sure that as an organisation we can respond to the changing labour market. And in partnerships like that with City & Guild, it's been really vital for us to be able to offer those training opportunities to our refugee clients so they can have the right foundation to build their skills, build their confidence, build their knowledge and access the job opportunities that are there now and in the future.
Lauren Roberts: 15:41
All such great points there, jess. I love the idea of reframing it to almost be a bit of a positive challenge and opportunity rather than being, you know, an additional obstacle. Lastly, jess, can I ask you to summarise on how employers and our listeners can advocate for policies that support refugee clients and how do they carry on the conversation kind of beyond this podcast?
Jessica Ridgewell: 16:20
what we're discussing, that supporting refugee communities in interwork isn't just a moral thing to do, isn't just something that businesses should do to feel responsible and and to address social challenges, but actually it's a really crucial for our economy and it makes business sense. We're talking about refugee communities. You have huge amounts of skills and experience to bring to the UK economy and I think that businesses really need to take that seriously and invest in supporting the recruitment and retention of refugee clients and candidates. So I think I'm starting to see that conversation narrative evolve, which is really exciting, I think, in terms of taking action yourself, or if you're an employee or an employer. I think that first step of understanding the context and the definitions what does it really mean? When we're talking about refugee communities, it's someone that does have the right to work. They have the right to remain here in the UK and now they are looking to rebuild their lives.
Jessica Ridgewell: 17:21
I think if you are in charge of hiring people, it's questioning your own discrimination and bias as well, like if you do come across someone that might have long gaps on their CV. If it's someone from a refugee background, a large proportion of that is not going to be their fault. They won't have had the right to work during long periods of time. I think there's very practical things within a business that you often find.
Jessica Ridgewell: 17:46
You perhaps are hiring people from refugee backgrounds, so how are you, as a colleague or an employer, supporting their integration? Are you welcoming them into the business? Are you ensuring they've got a buddy? Are you helping them with English business language? Are you inviting them for a cup of tea, to have a chat? Clients, whether you want to take a stand to celebrate the value of refugees in our community and our businesses, then please spread the word, because there are a lot of businesses out there who are feeling nervous about what this looks like and the more you can do to share the impact, the benefits, the business benefits, the commercial benefits, the personal benefits. It really does have this knock-on effect of being able to inspire other businesses to get involved.
Lauren Roberts: 18:49
Some really impactful techniques there to end this conversation. Thank you again, jess, for joining me today to hear about the amazing work that you do at Breaking Barriers and some of the practical techniques and initiatives employers can get involved in.
Jessica Ridgewell: 19:02
Thank you so much for having us, for helping us to spread the word about Breaking Barriers and the work that we do with refugee communities, and a huge thanks to 16.
Lauren Roberts: 19:11
Guilds. Thank you for checking out this episode. Remember to share it with a friend or colleague Until next time. Goodbye for now.
