Partnering for change

Bringing together a group of campaign partners to represent Gloucestershire.

Empowered Employers is a campaign that looks at the three ways in which barriers to employment present themselves; the employment gap, the pay gap and the opportunities gap. The campaign has been led by Barnwood Trust and brings together a group of partner organisations who represent a wide range of businesses across the whole of Gloucestershire.

In this blog, Jessie Hoskin, Campaigns Lead at Barnwood Trust talks about the motivations behind the campaign and why it was important to bring partner organisations on board from the start.

 

“Empowered Employers goes beyond addressing the disability pay and employment gap and looks as well at the huge inequality in work opportunity that disabled people face. Through this campaign we want to support meaningful employment across a range of sectors. But we also know that businesses are missing out on a huge pool of talent and innovation by not addressing barriers within the workplace.

Over the last few months, I’ve been working with a group of people with lived experience as well as commercial employers to inform this first stage of the campaign.

 

When I started working at Barnwood Trust at the start of 2022 I was immediately asked to develop this campaign. It was important to us to work with partner organisations and businesses that represent the wide range of industries we have in Gloucestershire.

Image is a collection of logos and quotes from our partner organisations. Text is as follows; "Through this campaign we want to support meaningful employment across a range of sectors" Jessie Hoskin, Barnwood Trust "We believe that with some small adjustments, employers can benefit from a much more diverse workforce" Naomi Contapolous, Clean Slate Training and Employment CIC "This campaign will help us to learn how we can further evolve our business proactively to become more inclusive" Martin Holmes, Creed Foodservice Ltd "We hope we can better our own understanding of how to create a more inclusive recruitment process" Prudence Bond, Hooray Recruitment

I am really proud that we have a group of partners that reaches widely across the county and spans such a range of industries. The group are all influential employers in Gloucestershire, all committed to driving change and raising awareness within their industries.”

In addition to the partners above, we are also thrilled to have Norsk Hydro and Renishaw. Click here to find out more about all of our partners. 

 

Jessie Hoskin, Campaigns Lead at Barnwood Trust

Jessie Hoskin