HR can play a key role in improving the employment rate of people with criminal records, a session on day two of the CIPD Festival of Work heard on Thursday.
Jacob Hill, founder and managing director of Offploy, told a huge audience on the London Olympia event’s main stage that there were about 600,000 people with spent convictions looking for work in the UK. “HR can create the right conditions that will filter out to the media and politicians – employers can start the process of inclusion and benefit everyone,” Hill said.
Hill said that people needed to accept that former prisoners were often just ordinary people who had made mistakes and who now could be relied upon, with support. He said: “I myself went to prison, yet I’m the son of two police officers.” More mentors were needed to help socially excluded people, many of whom had valuable skills, some picked up while serving sentences.
On day one of the event, a large audience heard CIPD chief executive Peter Cheese urge professionals to be mindful of the disruptive power of AI on the HR profession.
The social inclusion panel discussion on day two also featured Darren Burns, director of diversity & inclusion, The Timpson Group. He said the New Futures Network were skilled employment brokers who could hook businesses up with prison leavers. Timpson’s carried out risk assessments on people with unspent convictions on the basis that “everyone will be released from prison one day”.
Assessments revealed, added Burns, that about two-thirds of people released from prison were not work-ready because of mental health problems and/or class A drug use. “The last thing these people need is a job,” he said.
Along with Beckie Rowland, fresh start manager, Greggs, the panel discussed how Disclosure and Barring Service checks were wrongly used by firms to reveal past convictions. This was “grossly unfair” said Burns because such checks only revealed a snapshot in time. “The employers using DBS checks often aren’t skilled enough to evaluate the results of the check. For the vast majority of employers such checks are unnecessary.”
Rowland added: “Businesses use DBS checks as an excuse not to employ people. If the conviction isn’t relevant to the job applied for, why not talk with the person and assess them yourself.”
Katherine Ryan (left)
With scores of sessions covering the likes of AI, diversity and exclusion, employee engagement, the psychology of motivation and payroll issues, as well as about 50 stands from HR suppliers, the Festival of Work drew thousands of visitors. A keynote address on equality and diversity heard Canadian comedian Katherine Ryan discuss her regrets over her old comedy sketches that used to involve imitations of Beyoncé, and Fearne Cotton discuss wellbeing and management culture at the BBC, including Cotton feeling unable to speak up about her mental health while working at Radio 1.
Among its more novel attractions were a puppy stroking workshop and wellbeing parlour, featuring massages.
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Image: CIPD
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