Labour market review case studies

Business in the Community’s (BitC) Migrant Worker Group produced a paper on the challenges and opportunities posed by the migrant labour force in rural areas. The group comprises of 24 businesses and organisation including Samworth Brothers, Asda, Sainsbury’s, Tesco, Marks & Spencer, Co-operative Group and HSBC.

As part of its work the group has produced a voluntary code on employing migrant workers for employers to sign up to. The Code has six elements:

• Recruitment e.g. take care that in recruiting from a country they do not create a shortage of local skills;
• Travel and accommodation e.g. where possible, support migrant workers in finding suitable accommodation; 
• Integration into the host community e.g. seek to build a sense of belonging, social integration and acceptance by the local community, through social and sporting events;
• Providing for the needs of those who speak little or no English, ensuring that the cultural needs of minority ethnic people are met e.g. encourage and support migrant workers to learn English as a second language;
• Preventing and addressing racial discrimination and harassment in the workplace e.g. by promoting a culture that recognises, values, and respects diversity;
• Affording fair treatment in the workplace. e.g. ensuring that workers are provided with a copy of, and have understood, their employment contract/ terms and conditions. Provide an explanation of these in the worker’s first language where required. 

The Co-operative Group is the UK’s largest mutual retailer. It is the fifth largest food retailer, the third largest retail pharmacy chain, the number one provider of funeral services and the largest independent travel business. It also has strong market positions in banking and insurance. The Group employs 123,000 people, has 3 million members and around 4,900 retail outlets.

The Co-operative Group has gone much further than the Employment Equality (Age) Regulations require and has removed the contractual retirement age altogether. This means that just because an employee reaches a certain age, they are not obliged to retire if they don't want to. It simply doesn't make sense to retire an employee just because of their age; all that should matter is competency to do their job and how they do it rather than misplaced stereotypes about older employees. It also means that the Group benefits massively by retaining valuable skills and experience that would otherwise have been lost.

This means that employees can now choose to continue working past 65 if they wish to do so, giving them much greater flexibility. From a pensions perspective employees are able to continue in the scheme past 65 and it is possible to draw a pension whilst continuing to work for the organisation. 

The Asian Business Federation (ABF) is a not for profit organisation established in 2000. It is now the UK's largest Asian trade organisation representing, supporting and connecting thousands of members from across the UK. The organisation has many non-BME members – approximately 10% of its membership.

Alongside the development of the ABF, Enterprise4All was formally established in 2007 as a delivery agency for the different business support programmes targeted primarily at BME individuals but with a firm intent to work with other hard-to-reach groups and communities in the North West.

In recent times, E4All has gone through a process of change to become a more all-inclusive support agency. Under the leadership of Chief Executive Ilyas Munshi, who joined the company in April 2008, E4All now assists a wide range of under-represented groups including not only people from BME communities but also women entrepreneurs, people with disabilities, the over 50s and so on. 

In September 2007, the NWDA commissioned Experian to undertake research to identify the key trends in demography, migration and diversity in the Northwest, the opportunities that these trends present, and the ways in which policymakers should be responding to these trends. This research has identified five key trends that are significantly impacting the Northwest – the ageing of the Northwest population; internal migration flows; international migration; growing cultural diversity and inequality of opportunity. The study put forward nine strategic priorities for the Integrated Regional Strategy- including: ensuring sufficient and appropriate ESOL provision and addressing the unique barriers faced by different minority groups.

The research findings have been used to feed into the Principles and Issues papers that have been prepared for consultation in preparation for the first Integrated Regional Strategy.