Beyond Profit: Why Social Value is Defining Modern Leadership | #39

Welcome to Unleash youh Impact, Unlock Others, a podcast about inspiring leadership. We hope to bring you grounded wisdom stories from real leaders and leave you feeling inspired. Let's dive in.

So welcome to Unleash youh Impact, Unlock Others.

My name's Dave Morris, and this is a Voices of Leadership episode where I'm going to be talking to somebody I met recently at a very interesting event talking about social value.

So my guest today is Karen Nolan, and we're going to talk to Karen about what is social value, the concept of social value, why it matters for leaders, and more importantly, how can you embed that into your organizational culture? So Karen will share some insights from her years of experience.

She'll talk about her role now and how she helps people understand how to demonstrate they do social value exercises. So, Karen, welcome to the podcast.

Thank you, Dave. It's great to be here and thanks for inviting me.

No, I'm really looking forward to this conversation. I think for me, as leaders in businesses, we really need to think about not just our impact within the business, but the impact beyond the business.

So a topic like this is really important to me now. Rich and I, we talk about our model of leadership, which we call connected leadership. And there's three concentric rings in that.

Leading self, leading your team, and leading your business. But actually there's a fourth circle which is leading into the community.

And I think that is where today we're talking about leading into the community. And how do we have that positive ripple into the community?

Yeah, definitely, definitely.

So before we get into your background and your work, I just want to sort of position why I think in leadership today, our impact needs to go beyond the bottom line, because I think it's very easy to focus on the bottom line, the profit, et cetera. But is that really what business is all about? For me, I don't think it is. And I think you agree.

Yeah, no, I do agree, yes. I mean, obviously it's very important, but there's so much more that you can do.

Yes, obviously, the bottom line, profit, you know, economically viable business is extremely important, but it's what is going on within the business and the background to that business and how you can impact the community, but also the community around you, but also your employees as well, your suppliers, the people you do business with, as well as your end consumers, your end. Your cl.

Yeah, yeah. Well, I've done a bit of thinking prior to you coming along today about why in leadership, we need to think about the impact beyond the bottom lines.

I see what you Think of this. So the first point I would make is that there are shifting expectations from stakeholders in businesses. And I'll pick three main groups. Employees.

We're finding these days that employees want purpose, they want belonging. They want a sense that their work matters to themselves and to other people.

And I think without that, talent attraction and retention could become quite tricky in the future.

Yes, definitely. Yes, definitely. You've only got to look at some of the job ads now where people are offering company benefits.

It's not just, you know, car shares or, you know, private health insurance or perhaps, you know, extra holidays, that kind of thing. They're looking for hybrid working as one of them. That's a key thing.

But they're also looking for sustainable companies as well that are offering that. Not just greenwashing, they're actually looking for companies that care about the environment. They're looking for volunteer days.

So they're looking for paid time to go and volunteer.

That could be one day a year, two days a year, but also team team days as well, where the company are actually going out and doing things as a team or you're allowing you to go and mentor someone as well. That's really, really important. And I think it's the younger generation that are driving that.

Okay, we'll get into that a bit more later on. The second stakeholder group, I was going to talk about customers.

Increasingly, I think customers buy from companies that align with their values, whether that be around sustainability, it could be around inclusivity, it could be around all sorts of community impact. But I think actually buying from a company where you share the values has started to become more important.

Look at the rise of the B Corp movement just to prove that.

Yeah, exactly. Yes.

If you're a B Corp company, I've actually got figures here as well from B Corp on how that's actually improved a business's profitability as well.

We'll definitely get into that later on.

It's actually an example from a company who has a B Corp certification and. And it just shows how they've improved not only their profitability, but their branding as well.

Yeah.

And their name.

On a previous podcast recently, I spoke to a lady called Camilla Barnes and we. That was specifically about B Corp.

So anybody who's listened to this and hasn't listened to that episode, go back and listen to Camilla as well, because she talked about some really interesting, interesting stuff around becoming a B core and why it matters to be a B core business.

Yeah.

And the third stakeholder I was going to mention is investors and Regulators. So they are now integrating what's known as esg, environmental, social and governance measures into decision making.

So I think sometimes financial reporting on its own is not enough. And in the work that you do, I know that that has become really important.

Yes, absolutely, yes. Yeah. In my. The work that I do is I support businesses in tendering for public bidding for public sector tenders.

And we do have to present figures, statistics, financial and percentages as well on all the environmental work that the business is doing is achieving sustainability and governance as well. But that can include everything from the work in the community, donations, volunteer days, all sorts of things.

And also your CO2 net zero ambitions as well. So we have to report on all of those.

I'd also like to make a wider point in this, in terms of why this matters to go and beyond the bottom line. So more broadly, we live in a very interconnected world, so businesses don't operate in a vacuum. I think that's what I'm saying.

So every decision that we make in a business ripples out.

And it ripples out not just within the business, but it ripples out into supply chains, into society in general, into business environment in general.

And ignoring those broader consequences of those decisions we take and those actions that we take could lead to a lot of problems, reputational risk, regulatory problems, or even just loss of trust.

Yes.

With customers and employees.

Yes. Trust. Trust is a big thing. Your consumers, people buy from people, but they want them to have the same values that they have.

And as I say, it is the young generation that are coming up now, they're coming into their 30s and coming up into the 40s that really do want to buy from sustainable businesses and ethical businesses as well. So if you're source, where you source your products from, you know, how do you treat your people? How do you treat your employees?

It's not just going out into the wider community. So they want to see that and they expect to see it on social media. They expect to see it on your website.

They expect you to have policies or a strategy. They want to see that it's no good. You just telling them that they want it all the time on social media. Media.

If you're not talking about it there, that's not. That's another way to sell your brand is talk about what you're doing.

Yeah. That brings on to my third point, from going from a profit focused approach to a more prosperous approach.

So the bottom line profit, as you said earlier on, will always matter. Businesses are there to make money, that's fine.

But Long term financial performance is now directly tied to some non financial factors such as culture, such as sustainability, innovation and that social license to operate that you've just been talking about there. So leaders who only look at profit, I think they risk undermining the very conditions that make you profitable as a business.

Yes.

And I think that's where we need to really start focusing going forward.

It's the whole, it's everything you need to consider. I would say you would increase your profits if you have that strategy.

Yeah, I agree. So obviously trust is important. Innovation through purpose is important.

Resilience and risk management as a business is important and also one that I really care about, the legacy we leave as leaders. You know, I think, you know, I've got various leadership positions I'm very focused on. I take one that I do.

I'm a chair at my local tennis club and we've got some challenges that we're taking on.

I want to leave a legacy in terms of doing the right thing there, so that when I'm not there anymore, I've left it in a better position than it was before. And I think as leaders, that is our responsibility. What legacy are we leaving for the people that are coming up behind us?

Exactly. Yes.

And with my background in construction, housing development and planned maintenance as well, working on lots of estates and having lots of contact with local residents and new homeowners as well, it was really important for the company that I previously worked for to leave a legacy.

Yeah.

And we called it a social value legacy. It was our SV legacy. So every estate or every area that we worked in, we had a specific legacy for that so that we could leave that behind.

And it's really important to chart everything that you do and you can track your own legacy. So I don't know if you do that. Got your own way of tracking social value, the things that you do.

I imagine you've got quite a lot under your belt already and you've got plans for the future as well.

Yeah. Whether I've written it down, I mean, I can certainly point to some evidence of the stuff that I've done. But you're right. Have I written it all down?

No, possibly not. There's a degree of humility. I'm not there to say, look how great I am.

No, no.

But it's not about that, it's not about the ego. But having said that, it is nice to have a feeling inside that the work that I've done has helped other people.

And that doesn't make everybody looks good. If they do good things for people.

It's good to look back on that. It's good to review, to look back and see what worked, what didn't work. Because some things you do may not work.

They may not have the effect that you thought they might have. So it's helpful for you to refer back and to see how you can improve that.

If you're recruiting people as well, it's good to be able to show them and talk to them about that because that will help you recruit the type of person that you want. Because you want someone because of the way that you think and your ethics.

You want someone, you want to take on people that have the same ethics as you as well, and they're excited about that. So you're going to attract the type of person.

Exactly.

That you want.

And also when you're selling on to people, your buyers, your consumers, you know, that's something to shout about them and they will want to engage with you suppliers as well. If you buy from businesses as well, you know they're going to want to kind of do this exchange with you.

Absolutely.

So it's, you know, we work with Dave and Dave works with us and together we can achieve this.

Exactly.

You know, it is a bit of a sales pitch, but it's all leading in the right direction and it doesn't matter really what, you know, whether it's sales and trying to increase profits as such, because you need to do that anyway so that you can do, can do the work.

But it's just that having those people around you as a business, so you've got your suppliers who are on the same page as you, having employees on the same page and having your consumers as well. They're all on the same page. Everybody's working together.

So let's dive into your background a little bit. So you talked about your business bid essentials, which is where I met you when you did a talk around social value for us, a recent event.

So just explain to me a little bit about your background, how you got to starting the business bid essentials and where this important focus on social value came from. I'm really interested in your background.

Okay. Well, I've been doing tenders for just coming up for 20 years now. Oh, wow. Yeah.

And previously to that, I was more in kind of contract management and administration, administrative work and project work. But a very long time ago, I think it was probably about 25, 26 years ago, I worked in a hospice and I was a ward clerk in a hospice.

It was a kind of part Time job, actually, when my son was growing up. But that really did have quite a big impact on me.

Not just because obviously the type of environment that it was, but the different type of people that were coming in and that I worked with. The volunteers there and the great fundraising that they did at the time, I think it was only 19% funded by government.

So there was a lot of volunteer volunteering work and trying to raise money for the hospice. It was a fantastic place. I absolutely loved it there and I worked there for a couple of years.

But you must have seen, obviously there was other people doing the fundraising.

Yes. And I helped.

But you must have seen the outcomes of what that created for people who were in a pretty difficult position in life.

Yes, yes.

And it wasn't just the patients that were coming in, it was their families, children, all sorts of relatives and friends as well, partners and friends of the people.

And we also had lots of people, neighbors would come in and visit patients as well, and they'd stand and they'd talk and we'd all have a cup of coffee and chat about stuff.

And, you know, it was really important that the fundraising that they did supported them, not just for materials and to pay the bills and, you know, all the medical equipment that we needed and landscaping and paying the staff that actually worked there as well. But it was the emotional support that was given as well.

And they had lots of people come in and do massage therapy and hairdressing and, you know, helping people, families pay bills and things like that and where to go and who to talk to. So a lot of volunteers coming in to do those roles as well, as well as fundraising.

So I saw lots and lots of stuff that was happening in the community around the hospice, and I just thought that was fantastic. And looking back at around the work jobs I had after that and before that and after that, there was none of that going on in those cases.

There really was very, very little. There was just perhaps somebody who was raising money for their local charity. You.

They'd put something out and say, oh, can, you know, can we help that? But there was very, very little social value at the time.

We want you to look at your carbon emissions, you know, your environmental tactics, you know what, you know, what's your strategy and your policies on that. We want you to help the local community.

We want you to go into schools and you know, talk about the workplace and work it and take pupils on, you know, one week placements, things like that. Can you do any volunteer work?

You know, so it really pushed that out to contractors and since then that's, you know, that ripple effect has gone out since. I know social media has pushed that out as well. It's very important.

So they're talking about it now, but it's really gone out to businesses who aren't tendering or working for a local authority or a public sector body. You know, businesses are actually now doing that just because it's the right thing to do.

And it's great to see that because before that, you know, I had an experience much of any social value in a business at all?

No. So the Social Value act for people who don't know what that act is about. Are there some legal obligations that businesses have to follow?

Yeah, there's obligations on public sector buyers to incorporate it into the contracts.

Right.

There's performance measurements that they have to achieve but it's up to the individual buyer to set those. But I think that's getting strengthened now. That's getting strengthened up. They're going to have to put more in there.

But it's up to them to decide what their local priorities are.

So if it's just a small local council and they've got a big unemployment problem, they might push on the unemployment, the social value unemployment side. So that could be all sorts of. You've got to hire two people, you know, two local unemployed people. That might be the restriction on a contract.

So it's left to the actual buyers to decide what that is.

But even though. So this obviously act puts some responsibility on public sector organisations.

But although it doesn't do the same thing in the private sector, as we said already, it's just good business practice here, isn't it? Because there's some reasons why we should be doing this stuff.

Yes. Yeah, definitely.

Okay, so the next question I want to talk to you about was in terms of what social value really means then because it might mean different things to different people. So how would you define somebody who's listening to this thinking? I'm not really sure what social value means.

What's Karen's definition of what we mean by social value.

Okay, so for me, social value is about creating meaningful, lasting benefits for people and communities, whether that's working in the community, working with people in the community, employing them, green issues, sustainability. So it's not just about ticking boxes and giving people a chance as well and listening, listening to people.

And, you know, perhaps for people on the street, it could mean safer streets, it could mean youth programs, purposeful work, volunteering. And for a business, it could mean, and I think it actually does mean now, trust, integrity and reputation as well.

So social value has got a very wide definition here, isn't it, in terms of what we're talking about? So if I was a business owner listening to this, thinking, okay, I kind of get what Dave and Karen are talking about here.

I think this concept of social value is really important, but I don't really know where I stand in terms of how do I benchmark where I'm at?

Because I think the point you made about you're probably already doing these things, you just don't know you're doing them is a really important point.

We probably all are doing some things that would class as good social value, but how do we benchmark where we're at and then that will give us a view of where we go next?

Well, there's a few different platforms that you can use.

You could actually, well, just write down and see where you are and monitor that every year as part of your social value strategy, if you have one, or if you're going to create one that can be reviewed every six months or every year, and you can see how you've improved, what worked, what didn't work as well, what you'd like to do next, new ideas that you want to incorporate. But there are some platforms as well that you could use.

The public sector do use something called the Social Value Portal in many of their procurement processes.

And that has a fantastic little piece of software in it called toms, which is themes, outcomes and measurements system and what they require, most buyers actually are using it. So what they require is suppliers and contractors to actually use that, to first estimate and say, this is what we're going to offer.

And then throughout the contract project, if they're luckily enough to win the contract, they record all the work that they do. So it would be how many unemployed people or how many apprentices they take on. And they record that it's shared with the buyer as well.

So they can see that. And then at the end it can give you, obviously your full results.

But within the social value portal as well, there's lots and lots of different things like say, apprenticeships or unemployed people who've been unemployed longer than a year or five years, or working, perhaps giving a job to someone who is disabled and not able bodied.

So there's lots of different scenarios there that you can choose to deliver as part of your social value and each one has a little calculation behind it that works out how much that is actually putting back into the community. So there's a financial figure, and that's really interesting as well.

For an unemployed taking on someone who's a long term unemployed person, it could be in the thousands, it's 28, 30,000. So that's actually one way that you can say, wow, I've given that back to the community.

And the calculation that they use, I'm not going to try and explain that because it's really complicated, but what it does is it tells you that that person now who is employed might be perhaps eating a bit healthier, they might be able to afford to join a gym now, so there'll be perhaps less of a strain on the nhs. They might look after themselves a little bit better, better. So they might be driving, so they'll be purchasing a new car that will help the economy.

They'll be spending more money in the local economy as well. So that obviously ripples out.

Someone may not be more prone to crime, perhaps, or, you know, have an asthma against them, you know, so that obviously affects the community as well. Less, less spent on crime, less spent on the NHS and other kind of social services as well.

But also, if they're working for you now and they're taking on your social value ethos, the company's corporate culture, social value culture, you know, they're going to be giving out into the community as well now through volunteering and social value.

So there's this whole big calculation that takes place through toms, so you can actually see the figure that it's actually worth to be spent back into your local community.

So I'm guessing somebody who is going to be going and coming to you saying, we want to bid for some business using this TOMS framework is going to be really important because it's going to give you that information to help support the bid.

Your point about if you're a private sector business, maybe where you don't want to go to that level of granular detail, what's really important is, have you got a social value strategy? What is that?

Does it align with what you do and your core values and have you got some measurements built around that so you can see what progress you're making.

And you can still use Toms, even if you're not bidding for something, because you might want to report back to your shareholders, might be looking for investment. Those kind of figures are really powerful.

Yeah.

You know, to help you get investment and for your social values policies, your strategy, your legacy document. You know, if you're creating a legacy document as well, about what you've done previously, you know, those figures can go in there.

So you do have to pay for it. But there is a light version as well. But if you're doing lots of different things, I would, you know, suggest getting the. The full version.

So you do have to pay for that. But it's a really good way for you to track and to show people how much good you're doing. Because people understand pounds, don't they?

They do, yeah.

Pounds and pence. They understand that. And, you know, that's. That always looks good as well.

Yeah, it does. It does look good.

I mean, the point you make, actually, about if you're seeking investment now, we work with a number of businesses now and have done in the past, who are already have some investment ownership or are going to be seeking, you know, an investment owner of some description. So actually, that's really important to have some of this stuff in place, isn't it?

So you can demonstrate to that investment, investment body, whichever body you're going to.

Yeah, yeah.

Whether it be an angel investor, whether it be a private equity company or whatever it might be that you're going to ask for some money from. Look what we're doing beyond producing this or delivering this service.

Yeah. And this is how much it's put back into the community.

Sometimes it's really hard, unless you're working with somebody in particular, you're mentoring somebody, and then they've gone from, you know, nothing to something, and then they're growing. You follow them throughout their life for the next five years, then obviously you can track that.

But a lot of the work you do in the community, it's really hard, hard to track. But through Toms, you can do that.

So I think, Dave, if you went back and looked at everything you did in the last five years and put it into Toms, you'd get this lovely round figure at the end and go, wow, that's what it's been worth to the community. That's, you know, and you'd probably be quite surprised at how much it's worth financially because it. Obviously, it always does come down to money.

It's hard it really is hard to track the efforts that you've done. If you're going to build a school or build a new scout hut, you know, know that's easy. We built a scout hut.

There's the hut, it's there.

There's the hut, it's there. But what has that done for the people who are using the scout hut? You know, what has it done for the local community?

Has it helped enhance someone's life so that they haven't gone, turned perhaps to crime or something like that?

Listen to you talk. Yes. That these tangible outcomes, whether it be.

Actually I can measure it in monetary terms or whether it be, look, we've created this thing and there's this thing right in front of our face that's really important. But I think the point you made to me before we started recording is sometimes you can't always see the benefit of social value.

And that doesn't matter. Actually, it doesn't matter.

You just know that you're sending out positive ripples and you don't have to see all of the outcome of those positive ripples. So I'll give you an example of what I mean.

Lady who's a partner of ours, Beryl, she uses some of her own money that she generates from her consultancy work and her coaching work to deliver a program called Be youe Own Boss.

And that's about getting, getting people who've come through the care sector who aren't quite ready for the world of work and getting them ready for the world of work and getting them, you know, hopefully applying for a job and securing their first job. And she's been very successful at doing that. And I've met some of the individuals that she's put through this program now.

Okay, the tangible element of this is I can see that this person's passed their exams they didn't pass at school or they've now got a qualification they didn't have before they actually secured their first job. Those are the bits you can see.

But some of the stuff you can't see is the sort of confidence that person's now got and okay, that person may go on and, you know, carry on in the world of work, you won't see the long term benefit, but there will be a long term benefit there. There'll be some societal benefit.

Exactly, yeah. This society, and that's what TOMS kind of gives you. And that money, that value is what TOMS kind of gives you, what it's worth to society.

The difference between someone not having a job and having a job, you know. You know, society does grow when someone has a.

Or someone has an income or someone can keep themselves or become independent, for instance, and not rely on others so much. It's not always about actual work.

It's about, say, independence or giving them confidence to be the best that they can and that they could go and help other people. So it is that ripple effect.

Is that ripple?

Yeah, but tracking that.

So if you have a social value, legacy policy, and you produce that information in a booklet or a PDF or something, you know, once a year, or just keep that going online, social media, that's proof of what you've done. And people can see that because sometimes the figure isn't enough.

No.

So you want to break it down. People want to read about, you know, about. People buy from people and they want to read about the case studies.

But also people also buy things emotionally. So yes, I think numbers are important. But actually we all engage with things on an emotional level, don't we?

So that's why the storytelling, that's why putting out this good news stuff as well as. As the being able to quantify it financially is really important, because that's what buys, brings people in.

It draws you in because of the emotional connection you're creating with that.

So you have to do everything, really. You have to do that storytelling. You have to tell that over, you know, tell all the new stuff, go back and see what you've done.

And even if it was two or three years ago, you know, just keep telling it. Interview your employees as well, because they're doing stuff every day that you probably don't even think.

That's a good point.

You know, they don't even think it's social value.

They might help somebody, you know, just by taking the time to talk to them, help them sort out a small problem while they're out on site or while they're out, whatever the environment is, you know, they've helped somebody and it's sometimes it's just that one person that you help that you make an incredible difference to. And then you walk away and you think, oh, well, I was just doing my job, or I was just being friendly.

But these things, you know, people should be recording this because you'd be surprised how much you do in the community for people, you know, perhaps helping.

If you're in a call centre or helping someone, somebody on the phone and they start crying or they get emotional or they need some help with something, you know, just having someone listen to them and perhaps guide them in the right direction, it can make all the difference to someone and it's not quantifiable. You can't put a price on that. I think that all helps, you know, share that with your other employees, encourage your employees to tell you about it.

Everybody will start, you know, saying, well, that's a good idea. If someone comes to me with that problem, I might help, you know, I could help them with that or guide them.

And it just starts that ripple effect within your business.

Have you got a story from your own experience in terms of either a company you've worked with or worked for to bring this to life?

You know, they've been doing these amazing things and this is what we did, manage to measure them, but this is some of the other stuff we did where we sent these positive ripples out.

Well, there's lots and lots of things I have done over the years, or the businesses have done over the years.

So the business that I previously worked in, before I started my own business was we set up a joint partnership with Birmingham City Council and the the government's Care Leavers Covenant and St Basil's and the Birmingham's Children's Trust. And it was named We've Got yout. And it was a framework through the positive pathway that St.

Basil's run to support people who've experienced homelessness and coming out of the care system into jobs and training and secure housing.

So it was a combination of financial donation furniture, even things like bedside lamps and duvet covers and cushions and rugs and sofas and beds and things, and supporting Care leavers through the Care Leavers Covenant, and some puzzles as well in things like managing your own bills, food shopping, managing money, opening a bank account, things like that. So it was really, really amazing, the work that we'd done there. And everybody in the business was getting involved in that, which was wonderful.

So people that don't normally do anything, anything to do with social value or community work, working with residents was brought in to kind of help in that. So we had lots of donation wheelie bins in the business as well, so people could donate brand new items.

And we had fundraisers as well as the business donating money. And it was like everybody was getting involved and we could see what was happening there.

Through my own business, I support grant funding, writing, bid writing for a local food bank.

Oh, do you?

In Redditch.

I support them and they're pretty good at writing them, actually, so I just help them with reviewing the actual questionnaires themselves and also trying to enhance them and some of the odd questions that they get all right for them as well. So that's been pretty successful and I enjoy doing that. And, you know, I do need to shout about that a bit more, actually.

But, you know, I'm just one person, you know, in my business, it's just me. I do have a virtual assistant, but it is just me. So that's something I can do.

And I see a difference that because they've grown, they keep getting, luckily keep getting more funding and they're able to open up more units. They have these sheds. It's at Isaac's Food bank in Redditch.

Okay. And yeah, let's give a shout out to Isaac's Food bank in Redditch.

Definitely. He started during COVID I think he was 11 at the time, and he started in his garden shed and collecting food for people who had lost their jobs.

Right.

It's a food bank where anyone can go to. You're not means tested. You don't have to have a note from anybody to go there. So it's just people who want to buy food. So they do have to pay.

Some of it's free, some of it do have to pay, but it's really, really nominal. And now I think it's got about nine sheds, container units, all over Redditch and Bromsgrove that people can access. And obviously things have.

Some things have got worse over. The cost of living crisis has got worse over the last few years. So, you know, it's become really, really important.

But he's still running it with this.

But if you think about the ripple you're creating there, because you're saying, well, you know, I'm just doing my little bit. But you're. So what you're giving is time. Yeah. You're giving your time and expertise.

Yes, yes.

But you think about what that ripple is, because that time and expertise, I don't know if you quantify how many hours a year you put into that. Yeah, yeah. But that's allowing somebody to run their food bank.

Yeah.

Support a lot of people who need support.

Exactly. And I'm just one person.

And you're just one person.

One person in a business. And that, you know, that is really helping lots and lots of people. It's really hard to quantify.

I do actually need to do that analysis, see how they've grown. I think. Yeah, I think it's nine units they've got now, helping thousands of people. So, yeah, it's, you know, that's. Just one person can. Can do that.

But if you think about. If I'm a leader.

Listen to this thinking, well, I've got 100 employees or, you know, 400 employees or whatever it might be if all of my employees just gave, I don't know, two hours a year to do something based on social value. I'm just picking these figures out of the area.

Yeah, yeah.

But you've got 400 of people all giving two hours a year. That's suddenly a lot of hours.

Oh it is, yeah.

So, and what's the ripple effect of that? It can be quite exponential this, can't it? So for a very small bit of input, the outcome can be quite big.

Oh it can, definitely, yeah. So the Gen Z are looking for, I think it's something like 83% of Gen Z employees want to work for businesses that give them volunteer days.

So some businesses offer them two volunteer days a year so they can go and do whatever they, they want.

So these are paid days. They pay them. Don't be a volunteer.

Yeah. Either at their chosen one. Something that the business has decided to support.

But if they're doing it on their own and it's something that's dear to them, so they might run a charity or they might be, their family might be involved in charity or something locally to them that's not really connected to the business, then give them that time to go and do it.

But it's just caveat it with, right, I need to see what you've done and how that, that's that what the ripple effect is and how many people that's affected as well on top of that.

So they've got to like, you know, give that back to the company so that they, the company can then use it in their social value legacy document, you know, and I think having a legacy document so that everybody can look back and say, wow, we did this, we did that, you know, and this is what happened. And use the TOMS as well. Toms, yeah, yeah, use all of that. And you know, all.

It all feeds into the culture of the company, but it's all led from the top. If the top don't do it, the leaders don't do it, it's never going to happen.

But that's true of all cultural impact, isn't it? It's got to be led from the top. So we've talked about what social value is.

We've given quite a few examples here from our own experience of how people are creating social value. We've talked about measuring it using the TOMS system or even just doing your own strategy and having some KPI'S around your own strategy.

The last thing I wanted to ask you about is what do you think are the biggest barriers that you see to embedding social values and what can overcome those barriers?

So I think the biggest barriers are people think it costs a lot of money to do all these things, but in reality it doesn't cost a lot of money. It is just time. It's your time and your employees time devoted to setting up the strategy, deciding what you want to do and actually doing it.

The volunteer work, it's things like embedding it into your employment policy, your recruitment policy. So you could be looking at an unemployed and not perhaps giving them priority, but thinking, well, how can we recruit someone who's unemployed?

Where do we go to look at what should we be doing to encourage that? Do we need more training in the business to help people?

Upskill to help people so we can take people on, to give them that bit of training rather than just take on a fully experienced person. We've got the time to train somebody to give them that role. So there's things like that. Yes, indirectly it is money as well.

But I think it's quite important, if you are committed to delivering some social value, that it's more time, paid time.

Yes, I think a problem. I see. And maybe this is one of the biggest barriers.

A lot of leaders are very, very operationally focused and looking inward, looking in at their business from an operational perspective, which clearly is important. We've got to get our service delivered or our product to market.

But actually what we're not doing is taking a sort of step back, looking out and thinking more strategically. We're thinking too operationally, but what we're talking here is that we've got to take a more outward looking, strategic view at this, haven't we?

And you're right, it isn't just about money, because if we have got money to give to a charitable cause, that's brilliant and we should do that.

But I think where we've done it, as Zentano done it as a business, it's about our time and expertise, giving our time and giving our expertise to help. So I'm thinking of it. We supported the charity for a few years in Worcester and they were.

It was a homeless charity and did some brilliant work around getting people off the streets into secure accommodation and helping them get back on their feet.

And what we were doing was helping their team of leaders and the people who ran that place to operate a bit more of more coaching, orientated style of leading here. So we went and did some training to train her how to do that coaching bit.

Fantastic.

Now, I don't know what the ripple effect of that was, but it was really well received. Yeah. And all we were doing, really, was giving our time and expertise.

Yes.

Did it really cost us that much?

Not really, no. Not really.

And those people, that charity probably wouldn't have been able to afford to pay for that because they need to justify that to their board members.

So, you know, they'll probably want to see pounds and pence of how much they've spent on other things to do with securing accommodation for homeless people, but training for their leaders, probably their managers, probably not. Yeah. So what you've done is, like, really invaluable for them and it can't be quantified.

Well, it may be, actually, if you've helped them to enhance a process or, you know, cut something out that's costing them money, costing them time, you know, so it's worth following up with as many people as you can when you do that. If you employed a social value champion as part of your business, that could be their role to help follow that up.

Because it's really important to know whether you should do that again. Did it make any difference what you did?

There's another good barrier to think about. We could start something off with all good intentions, get going, but we lose momentum because our attention goes somewhere else in the business.

Actually, having some social value champions in the business, whose job it is to keep that momentum going, to keep that focus on creating social value, is actually a relation important.

Oh, it is way to overcome that barrier, isn't it? Yeah. And it's good, it's empowering for the person or the team that are doing that. It's not really extra work, it's extra kind of fun work to do.

It's taking them outside of their usual routine and giving them something that's really important.

And I think, you know, if you have the right people involved in that, if you identify the people in the business that want to be involved in that, I think that would be really empowering for them. But, yeah, you do need to be kept on track as a business. You do. You can't just do one, you know, donate a couple of grand a year and then that's it.

We do our bit for charity. It's what is it really doing? And does it really make the employees feel valued and that they're working for an ethical business?

So, yeah, there are a few barriers to it, but it's the mindset I Think it's the mindset you can improve your profitability, you can improve your brand, you can improve your employee retention rate, you can improve your employee recruitment rate and just your standing as a whole. You know, it all comes together.

Yeah. So Karen, before we sort of do a final wrap up and your final reflections, you talked earlier on about some figures you had from a B Corp business.

Yes.

Did you just want to share those with us? Because I think that would be useful just for you to share those with us.

Okay, so I've got some stats here from businesses that are a B Corp business are more likely to grow 28 times faster.

28 times faster?

Yes. Than an average business.

Right, okay.

So they've grown three hundred and ninety percent in five years.

Now that's not wholly on being an ethical business, but that has probably played a part on that because 4 in 5 consumers from the, from this survey won't buy from brands that are unethical.

No.

And they want to buy from ethical brands. So HelloFresh do all of kinds, organic, where they can, locally produced and they're kind of ethical as well, the sustainable packaging, etc.

So that has helped them to grow as well. It surely must be a part of that.

Must be, yeah, absolutely.

So about 70% of people actively buy from sustainable brands. 82% would in this survey would stop buying from an unethical brand completely.

So 40% say how a brand treats their staff is the most important consideration.

And we know from ethical clothing made in China and India and other foreign countries how people have decided that they don't actually agree with that and they'll go for ethical brands. So about 40% of people want to buy from ethical brands.

I presume that figure is growing, isn't it? Recent years?

Yes.

So that, that could just become a bigger figure in the future as well.

Yes. Yeah.

And you know, I'm wondering how that might work out with the cost of living crisis as well because there's a lot of high street brands that are quite cheap that are still having them made abroad. But even the, you know, people like Primark, you know, they have a sustainability policy and document you can see on their website.

So they're really trying to still offer cheap clothing or reasonably average priced clothing, but still be ethically responsible as well. So they detail all of the, you know, all their, their practices.

I guess it's not about being perfect, it's just about trying to get the balance right.

Exactly. Yeah. You can't be, I don't think anyone can be 100, but I think the more that everybody, you know, does that so.

Because these large companies are doing it now. I mean, even McDonald's used to do it for still doing it, aren't they?

They've got the McDonald's foundation, you know, and that's been going for like, I don't know, 30, 40 years or something.

Yeah, you know, but they were probably one of the first, first that did the kind of high street, well known brands that started doing charitable work and they really do some fantastic work. But everyone thinks, oh, it's just McDonald's but you know, they were perhaps one of the first now.

And I don't think they get enough credit actually, to be honest with you.

But yeah, so 70% are more likely to buy from a B Corp brand, but I would say 70% of people are more likely to buy from a company that does actually talk about what they do and have that it's purpose driven. Purpose driven, yeah.

So the more you talk about it, the more you put it out on social media, it's on your website and you're shouting about what you do, the more trustworthy and honest and you know, you have integrity. Business has got integrity and treats their employees right as well.

Yeah. Okay, so in wrapping up Karen, this is clearly a really important topic.

Clearly that the businesses that are doing this and doing this well are making a big difference not just to their bottom line, but to their brand reputation, their ability to attract and keep good staff. You know, there's a lot of benefits to getting this right.

Yes.

So my final question to you is if as a leader listening to this, wanting to start improving their social value impact, you know, tomorrow, what's the first step you think they should take?

So I think first steps would be make social value part of your decision making. So it would be not a separate checklist.

Make it hard, incorporate it into all your policies, incorporate it into your environmental policies, your recruitment policies, your operational policies as well. You can incorporate that and your procurement policies. So who you buy from, who you deal with, what other businesses you deal with.

So start incorporating that into your culture. That's probably the first, you know, you need to model your behavior and model that so that people can see that.

Yeah.

Get everybody on board in your business. Talk to all your Employees and colleagues and business and supply chain business partners, you know, see how they feel, see what they want to do.

Have they got ideas? You can start small. You know, I talked about having a wheelie bin in the office for donations, for recycling, that kind of thing. There's lots of.

Especially with the recycling. You can have start a policy of no single use plastics, things like that. That's very, very small.

Donate your time, look at your business and see what you can offer as a business, what your strengths are before you start going outside of the business and dealing with homelessness.

Get your own house in order first, I think.

Exactly. But use your talents and your training for. So you identified a homeless charity that.

Where you could give some training to them, their management, their management leaders.

But you know what it was that attract. So their leader who I met, I met quite randomly at a networking event where we both got lost trying to find the networking event.

So we ended up walking around trying to find this event and talking to each other. And I just thought, wow, this guy is a really interesting guy doing a really interesting job.

And I just thought, actually, I like the values that underpin what he does. So when we were looking for someone to help, it's actually, there's a shared value here. Yeah, why wouldn't we want to help?

Yes, exactly. Yeah.

So it's quite random. It happened quite randomly. Yeah.

But actually, you know, that's why we decided to work with them, because they shared they were trying to do a really important job. And I didn't understand homelessness until I spoke to him. And I really got under the skin of why are people homeless?

So there was an education piece for me as well in terms of working with this organization.

That's fantastic.

So, yeah, I think the point for me, if I'm wrapping up from what you said, the thing I can do tomorrow is go out and speak to my employees. Let's just talk to them about why social value matters and what they think we can do.

That's a good starting point because I think that can then inform the next bit, which is, let's create a social value strategy in the business and some metrics around it. But if we don't know what our employees think, because they probably got, as you said, got some brilliant ideas.

Oh, I'm sure they have.

And.

And you've got your ideas, but they might not think, oh, I don't really want to do that, but they will want to do what you want them to do when you do what they want them to do. So it's a partnership, really.

It's a partnership with other businesses that have the same ethics and values as you, but all your employees as well and yourself. If you've all got the same values, it's all going to get done and may not be able to do it all very quickly or at the same time.

If you've got a structure strategy you can build in, one employee wants to donate to a charity or volunteer or start a program, offer their time, that kind of thing.

So you know, it's all got to be scheduled in around the actual work that you're doing because it can't interfere with your business, it can't stop you making money, it shouldn't stop your operational and your service delivery, it shouldn't stop any of that. It should be aligned with that. It should be alongside that should be day to day. It should be be.

This is the business we do day to day and this is the community, the social value we do day to day. They should be aligned together, they should be flowing together and one shouldn't interfere with the other.

In fact, they should both enhance each other.

Yeah. In summing up this conversation for me, there's four key learning points. Trust is the currency of leadership.

So trust is built when leaders demonstrate responsibility beyond just serving shareholders.

I think creating social value through fair employment, through ethical supply chains, through, you know, environmental stewardship, all these things signals an integrity and it earns loyalty. So I think creating trust in your leadership is really important part of this second thing.

When we have purpose driven businesses, it often sparks creativity and we have more innovation. So I think that's the point you made earlier on.

Some, I guess some of the most groundbreaking innovations that have come have probably come from solving social challenges. Yes, that's the reality, isn't it? So think about things like renewable energy as an example, sustainable packaging.

There's probably loads of examples out there where innovation has come through having a social value strategy. The third point, resilience and risk management. Companies that solely focus on financial efficiency possibly are going to be fragile in the future.

Those that embed the social value principles we've been talking about tend to build stronger relationships, more adaptable cultures and reputations that help them weather the tough times. And we're going through some of that right now.

And then the last thing, and it's the thing you and I talked about earlier on, it's this leadership legacy. What am I leaving behind me? So impact beyond the bottom line defines the stories that leaders leave behind.

And let's face it, people don't remember how much money you made. What they remember is the impact you created.

Exactly. Yes, they do.

Yeah. And that's a probably a nice place to leave.

It is, yeah.

So for anybody listening to this, thank you for listening, Karen. Thank you for being on the podcast. And for anybody listening, just think about what legacy are you creating, what ripple are you you're creating?

And go and do something tomorrow that creates a little bit of social value.

Oh, that's lovely. Thank you, Dave. Thanks for having me.

You're welcome.

It's a lovely thought. Thank you.

Thank you.