Caterer in the community

Chris Gray has just won a gold medal. The managing director of Eurest BT Services, which caters for 1,800 staff in 250 restaurants in the UK, has been rewarded for his part in the Youth Employment Venture.

This scheme aims to reduce unemployment among people under 25 by offering them opportunities for work experience, training and jobs. It is being run as part of the worldwide Compass in the Community initiative launched in spring 1997. The company, which is the parent group of Eurest, encourages and rewards efforts made by its businesses in building healthier communities through various activities, such as fund-raising for local charities and promoting healthy eating.

"By assisting the creation of wealth in the community, business thrives, and therefore Compass thrives," says Gray. "It also helps us in our aim to become the ‘preferred employer'. Employees are a scarce resource in this industry, and we need something to differentiate ourselves from other companies.

"By putting something back into the community, we hope to be seen as a good employer, and attract people when they are choosing jobs. We also want to improve staff retention by supporting their involvement with community activities."

Compass has set up an award system as an incentive for its businesses to participate in the Youth Employment Venture. For the purpose of the awards, the company is divided into eight sections with four categories in each: gold, silver and two merit awards. Gray's BT Services division of Eurest won a gold award for its work with young jobless people last year. It was then entered into the worldwide awards and was a runner-up, winning a total of £15,000.

In addition to the involvement in the local community, Gray sees added benefits in the employment scheme for BT Services. It balances the age range of his employees by bringing in younger staff to encourage a liaison with younger customers, and by tapping into a new resource: young people who were not able to get jobs because they were caught in the homeless-jobless trap.

Charity gateway

With this in mind, Gray worked with national charity Foyer Federation, which offers a gateway into the world for young people without homes and jobs by offering them accommodation and support.

Gray had to convince Foyer and its clients that the catering industry was worth working in. He also had to persuade his own staff about the viability of the scheme, and address their fears and perceptions of working alongside young unemployed people from possibly unhappy or disturbed backgrounds.

Once this was achieved, he faced an unexpected problem - the trainees themselves. Foyer had to choose nine young people to be placed in nine BT Service units for a six-week training programme, covering basic catering skills such as stocktaking and food handling. The cost of this training was about £100 per person. At the end, each trainee was guaranteed a job interview, but not necessarily a job.

However, only seven young people were interested enough in catering to undergo the training, and three left within the first week. The remaining four finished the course and three were offered jobs in September. But by February all had left - for the same reasons: punctuality and poor attendance.

"Turning up at 10am instead of 8am is not on," says Gray. "We had anticipated this to some extent, but the problem was greater than expected. They did the job properly but found the discipline of work difficult to address. If the rules can't be obeyed, you lose your job - this is a part of the work education itself."

BT Services was tackling a particularly difficult group of long-term unemployed, but another Compass company, airport division Select Service Partner, retained all of its eight trainees. However, its students were already interested in catering as a career and only needed an opportunity to take them forward.

Hendon College of Further Education, where Compass education arm Chartwells is responsible for the catering, experienced problems of punctuality and attendance too, but most trainees completed their studies and found jobs. However, these students included people with special learning difficulties as well as trainees from Mencap. They were already at the college and worked in the catering department on day placements to complete NVQ studies. Chartwells claimed a silver award and £5,000 for its involvement in the Youth Employment Venture.

Gray is philosophical about his project and points out that all three former employees found other work. "I don't think they would have done that without our experience," he says. "We're not necessarily introducing people to catering, but to work.

"They may one day be our customers and, if we've touched them in a positive way, there's the benefit. This is reality. I'm not downhearted if it doesn't work smoothly. This kind of venture demands long-term commitment to see it through."

This year, efforts are being made by Foyer and Gray to improve the mechanics of screening and matching people to the opportunities. Gray is also working with Streets Ahead, the charity set up by London's Centre Point as an employment agency for the homeless, and is using this scheme as Eurest BT's entry into the 1998 awards.

"We're looking at training them in one place instead of several, to encourage mutual support and competitiveness," he says. "When the manager is confident in their skills, he will be able to send them to local units wanting staff.

"There are three benefits to this: we save on recruitment fees, we get staff trained to our own standards, and the young person gets a broader range of experience and closer attention. Our own staff also feel better because they don't feel that they've spent hours teaching them only to have them leave."

By coincidence, both Eurest North-east and Eurest Midlands are working with local Foyers to come up with schemes in their areas. Gray sees this as a strong indication of the importance of the right message coming from the top.

"It's not an easy area to get into and organisations must look long-term," he says, "but the company philosophy is that a successful company needs to pay attention to other aspects of its activities, not just the financial performance.

"Not only is putting something back in the community good for business," he concludes, "but long-term initiatives like this are good signals that the business itself is in for a long run."