Liz is the Head of Communities and Social Value at the Breyer Group, a leading property services provider that has been working with the public sector for over 60 years. We’ve been collaborating with Liz and her Community and Social Value Manager, Bobby Lorraine for the last couple of months and wanted to share what we’ve learnt about some of the work they’re doing. We caught up with Liz recently.

Breyer recently signed up to use Match My Project’s new features, which will help Liz and Bobby create more pathways to work for local people – and share Breyer’s good work far and wide. For a preview, have a look.

What’s a typical day like at Breyer? 

Our role as the Social Value team is to support the Breyer Group through facilitating and delivering Social Value impact in line with the contract KPI’s. There is no typical day as it varies, depending on the needs of our communities and business priorities.

It can include bid writing, strategic planning, report writing, or collaboration with our contract teams and external partnerships, such as charities, local government, training organisations and SMEs.

We will also attend job fairs and community events where there are opportunities to meet and engage with residents.

What’s the community project you’re most proud of?

We worked with Allen Edwards Primary School in Lambeth to support their Eco Club. We donated both time and money to help students develop their fruit and vegetable growing areas. We gave £1,000 towards buying seeds and plants for the Primary School, which were chosen by the Eco Club students.

Then, later in the spring, a number of Breyer staff joined students and parents for a planting day. 

Deputy Headteacher, Nicola Harris:

“We are so grateful to Breyer Roofing for helping transform our allotment area and for joining the Eco Club students on numerous occasions to discuss plants; help plant seeds; and to deliver and establish bigger flowers and vegetable plants. It has been an amazing learning experience for the students involved and the results will be enjoyed by all of us at the school. Thank you!”

That’s great. What’s coming up in the future? What are you really excited about? 

We are very excited to be launching the Breyer Virtual Employability Academy. This will enable residents and students to access pre-employment training modules, that are usually only available to our employees online, in an environment in which they feel safe to explore construction. 

Part of the programme offers access to a town hall Q&A session with Breyer professionals to hear about their career journeys and why the construction sector is a great place to have a lifelong career plan. 

Each learner will receive certificates of completion and an interview to access suitable work placements, apprenticeships, and employment opportunities.  

What would you change tomorrow if you had a magic wand? 

One area we would change immediately would be the way Social Value is procured, measured and reported. It needs streamlining. We are a small team and the resource required to manage the multiple different approaches is confusing and unmanageable.

The key factor for us is to ensure the procurement requirements meet the demographics of the communities we are working in.

For instance, there is no sense in focusing on apprenticeships when the real need is to improve education for students, promote apprenticeships in construction and the built environment or to provide residents with clothes and food for their families because of the cost-of-living crisis.

Finally, what’s the best piece of advice anyone has given you? 

Listen, collaborate and be innovative in order to find solutions that meet the needs of individuals and communities.

Thanks Liz!

If you are looking to create more successful apprenticeships in the local communities you serve, our up coming new features will be helpful – please take a look! If you want to know why we’re doing this, have a look here.

• Pippa is the Social Value and Marketing Manager at Kinovo. We caught up with her recently to learn more about the work she’s doing to create social impact in the communities that Kinovo works in.
• Kinovo recently signed up to use Match My Project’s new features, which will help Pippa’s team create more pathways to work for local people – and share Kinovo’s good work far and wide. For a preview, have a look here and if you want to know why we’ve introduced these new features have a look here.

Tell us a bit about your role at Kinovo – what’s a typical day like for you? 

I am the Marketing and Social Value Manager at Kinovo Group, which consists of specialist property services contractors, Dunhams, Purdy and Spokemead, so there is always a variety of different jobs to complete, and no day is ever the same, which I love.  

I work from home most of the time, unless I am attending an Industry Event, a Social Value project we are undertaking or meeting in person with colleagues in one of our 5 offices or out on site to work on a communications piece about a specific job being carried out.   

My role is extremely broad and gets me involved not only with the ‘S’ for Social Value from ESG, but also the development and implementation of our Net Zero plan, ESG Impact report and all the Marketing activity across the whole Group, as well as supporting the Business Development Team on the Social Value elements of new bids.

Therefore, a typical day, could be anything from carrying out mock interviews with residents for a client, attending an apprentice fair, writing and posting Social Value stories, selecting and planning what social activities to do next, collating our Social Value data and presenting to our Board of Directors the amount of Social Value delivered, attending and networking at an industry events like Chartered Institute of Housing Annual Conference, just to name just a few. 

What’s the project you’re most proud of? What did you deliver and how did you engage local people? 

We are proud of everything we have done this year Social Value wise, the importance of it has been elevated across the Group, it is no longer a ‘nice to have’ or a second thought.

We have begun to build lots of key relationships with clients so that we gain a better understanding of their needs when it comes to Social Value requirements.  

Understanding your clients’ needs is critical when it comes to  delivering a project that is relevant and important to them.  

We’ve educated our Contract Managers about their role and responsibility in delivering Social Value on their contracts; this is an ongoing process and change of mindset for them. 

In terms of community projects, our Peabody garden patio makeover and the estate garden regeneration is probably the most pivotal project in our journey so far.  

We worked with Ellie Ward the Paradox Community Manager as the residents had told Ellie their community space was important to them to not only grow their own food, but also for social interaction, positive mental health and wellbeing.

We transformed the patio area at the Paradox community centre, providing new planters and creating a space for residents to use when they attend the community hall, bringing a local community garden back into life in Chingford.

Volunteers worked with residents to clear weeds, install a new pond, and make the garden more attractive. This project was a great example of social value we can deliver when collaborating with other partners in our supply chain – AP Electrical, Willow Services Limited, RDS Fire and Security Ltd and NRG Electrix – to enhance the green space in this residential area.

What’s coming up in the future? What are you really excited about? 

We have recently opened a small Nature Trail in Hackney, where we are planning to hold different educational events for local residents and community groups. We are very excited about this as we have regenerated the space with local volunteer resident, Les Moore.  

Part of the project includes upcycling a balcony, which was previously dumped onsite, and re-purposing it into a ‘show and tell’ space to demonstrate to residents how they can grow their own plants and turn their balconies into green havens.

We are now looking for nature lovers of all expertise to help make best use of the space.

We have called out in the local magazine ‘Love Hackney’ for any local schools or community groups that may be interested in hiring the trail for educational visits or events.Page 17, Love Hackney article https://drive.google.com/file/d/1S5mqtVseFlNFNLuoXigddHZ8CzA-gAYB/view.

In your opinion, what’s the biggest challenge for your organisation – and the wider community of people who care about delivering impact across our communities – with creating sustainable and meaningful impact? What would you change tomorrow if you had a magic wand? 

Resource. 

We need to get more people to help with projects that our clients would like us to help deliver.  As a Group we have introduced 1 day a year for volunteering, which is a great step in the right direction and where people want and can do more they can.  

People’s mindset to understand how Social Value helps everyone, and that by just giving a little it gives so much back. It would speed up the process of delivering projects, if everybody already thought this way and didn’t need educating. 

Finally, what’s the best piece of advice anyone has given you? 

My motto these past couple of years has been: ‘Get comfortable being uncomfortable’.  

When you grow and develop you gain more confidence in yourself. To do this there are pain barriers you have to push yourself through, just like a professional athlete.  If you apply this to anything in your life you fear, you will undoubtedly learn something from it and you will develop and grow.  Even to start with if you just become aware of things that you maybe fearing, that are holding you back from your dreams, that is a great first step. 

“You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just to take the first step”

Martin Luther King

Thanks Pippa!

If you are looking to create more successful apprenticeships in the local communities you serve, our up coming new features will be helpful – please take a look! If you want to know why we’re doing this, have a look here.