Shifting Mindsets around employing people with criminal convictions on Social Mobility Day
Angela Halliday is Sodexo UK & Ireland’s Social Impact Director. She began her career with Sodexo as deputy director for HMP Addiewell in Scotland and knows firsthand the impact that finding employment for individuals leaving prison can have on their successful reintegration into society.
Today, Social Mobility Day, Angela shares her thoughts on how businesses can more proactively access the pool of talent available in UK prisons.
Each year, Social Mobility Day invites us to reflect on the ways we can build a more inclusive society – one where everyone has access to opportunity. This is a key pillar of our Social Impact Pledge 2030.
As soon as this year’s theme ‘Shifting Mindsets’ was announced, it instantly brought to mind the work my colleagues in Sodexo Justice Services have been doing through our Starting Fresh programme.
Since launching in 2023, Starting Fresh has helped make real progress in shifting employer mindsets – within our business and beyond – around recruiting people with criminal convictions.
More than 70,000 people are released from prison in the UK every year.
In the six prisons we operate on behalf of the Ministry of Justice and Scottish Prison Service, our teams are committed to rehabilitating offenders and providing opportunities for purposeful activity.
This means that many leave prison job-ready, with new skills and qualifications.
Our employment, education and rehabilitation services stay agile, ensuring we are equipping people with desirable skills for the evolving job market – meaning prison-leavers are ready and able to help narrow the critical talent gaps in sectors like facilities management, hospitality and logistics.
When we launched Starting Fresh, we were already seeing an upturn in attitudes from employers around hiring people with criminal convictions in their past. Businesses such as Timpsons and Greggs have done fantastic work advocating for ex-offenders and showing what great employees they can often be.
Research we conducted at the time confirmed that many organisations with skills gaps would be prepared to consider employing someone with a criminal record. The majority of those employers, however, were thinking about this in the context of ‘giving someone a chance’ if a candidate applied for a role and ticked the previous criminal conviction box.
We recognised the opportunity to give employers practical solutions for how they can proactively seek out ex-offenders with the right skills and qualifications by dipping into the largely untapped talent pool in UK prisons. Best of all, how they can do this without accruing any recruitment costs.
Through Starting Fresh, significantly more employers – including hiring managers within Sodexo – have learned that they can hold recruitment days at their local prison – at no cost – and arrange visits to prison education and training facilities to meet people approaching their release date or eligible for ROTL (release on temporary leave – people who are able to leave the prison to go to work and then return after their shift).
It has been fantastic to see recruiters’ mindsets shifting in recent years around ex-offenders but by building on this shift to move employers from passive acceptance to real action, we will see a significant step change in social mobility and positive impact.
Find out how your business can get involved with Starting Fresh
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