RollOnFriday and homeless charity St Mungo's have officially launched their RollOnMonday project this week.
A trial for the scheme started a couple of years ago. Law firms employ work-ready homeless candidates wherever they have need for them for a minimum of three months on at least the London Living Wage, currently £9.40 an hour. At the end of the placement there's a hope but not an expectation that the candidates might be employed permanently.
It was intended that some three or four people would go through the trial. In fact more than 30 have participated in the scheme, 24 of whom are now in full time employment. Marks & Spencer and Next (courtesy of introductions from Slaughter and May and KWM) have supplied new formal clothing to the candidates. Several firms have each taken on multiple candidates, including BPP Law School, Clifford Chance, DWF, Freshfields, Linklaters, Macfarlanes, Shearman & Sterling, Thomson Reuters, Travers Smith, Weil Gotshal and White & Case.
Osborne Clarke has now donated £100,000 to St Mungo's to pay for more staff to administer the scheme and allow it to expand across the UK. HRH The Duke of Kent hosted a lunch at Buckingham Palace two weeks ago to thank the organisations that have backed the initiative (check out the pics here).
Ellie, who was housed by St Mungo's after becoming homeless, worked at Linklaters on the scheme. She is now permanently employed there. She said "I have absolutely loved it. I feel more confident and have gained financial independence. When I received my first pay cheque I felt so proud."
If your firm is interested in taking someone on please click here to find out more.
Tip Off ROF
A trial for the scheme started a couple of years ago. Law firms employ work-ready homeless candidates wherever they have need for them for a minimum of three months on at least the London Living Wage, currently £9.40 an hour. At the end of the placement there's a hope but not an expectation that the candidates might be employed permanently.
It was intended that some three or four people would go through the trial. In fact more than 30 have participated in the scheme, 24 of whom are now in full time employment. Marks & Spencer and Next (courtesy of introductions from Slaughter and May and KWM) have supplied new formal clothing to the candidates. Several firms have each taken on multiple candidates, including BPP Law School, Clifford Chance, DWF, Freshfields, Linklaters, Macfarlanes, Shearman & Sterling, Thomson Reuters, Travers Smith, Weil Gotshal and White & Case.
Osborne Clarke has now donated £100,000 to St Mungo's to pay for more staff to administer the scheme and allow it to expand across the UK. HRH The Duke of Kent hosted a lunch at Buckingham Palace two weeks ago to thank the organisations that have backed the initiative (check out the pics here).
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OC's Ray Berg and RoF's Matthew Rhodes |
Ellie, who was housed by St Mungo's after becoming homeless, worked at Linklaters on the scheme. She is now permanently employed there. She said "I have absolutely loved it. I feel more confident and have gained financial independence. When I received my first pay cheque I felt so proud."
If your firm is interested in taking someone on please click here to find out more.
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if they don't have a house, how can they have a bank account?
if they don't have a bank account how can they get paid the minimum wage?
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If I were a client at M&S or Next I think that I would be far more impressed by the Slaughters/KWM partner contacting me to ask whether I would be interesting in supporting the scheme by donating clothing than I would by being invited to some awards dinner or cup final. This sort of initiative is the kind of thing that firms' marketing budgets should be spent on.
PS Homeless people can indeed have bank accounts (believe it or not many homeless people started off just like anonymous, with a home, a bank account and everything, and then things unravelled and they found themselves without a permanent address).
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