With impressive foresight, Lendlease founder Dick Dusseldorp predicted more than 40 years ago that companies would soon have to “justify their worth to society with greater emphasis being placed on environmental and social impact than straight economics”.
That ethos permeates the multinational property and infrastructure business today, and nowhere more so than at Lendlease’s £2bn Elephant Park regeneration in Southwark, SE1.
Earlier this summer, the company reached an important “social impact” milestone at the project: it has created 500 jobs for Southwark residents since 2013. Almost half of these jobs (247) have gone to people who were previously unemployed. They include former residents of the deprived Heygate Estate, which was demolished to make way for the regeneration, and some 121 people have gone from long-term unemployment into at least six months of sustained employment on the project.
And this is only the start: working with its contractors, Lendlease intends to create 5,000 construction jobs over the course of the 15-year project and 1,000 jobs in the completed development.
Rob Heasman, Lendlease’s project director for Elephant & Castle, says the company’s not-for-profit organisation, Be Onsite, has been vital to achieving this.
Be Onsite helps people from disadvantaged backgrounds find training and jobs in the property sector. This includes working with the Ministry of Justice to help offenders who are coming to the end of their sentence. It has its origins in Lendlease’s Bluewater shopping centre development in Kent more than 15 years ago, when the company struggled to recruit the skilled workforce it needed.
At Elephant Park, it operates out of the Artworks, a creative work hub with more than 30 start-up businesses in repurposed shipping containers.
“It is very accessible, very visible to the local community. They work closely with us. We consider them part of the project team,” Heasman says.
As you would expect, Lendlease’s section 106 agreement sets out a series of job creation targets for the scheme. But Heasman says that the company is more concerned with creating long-term sustained employment than in simply ticking boxes.
“Section 106 is quite a blunt tool. It is about targets. If someone had been working here for six months and a day that would be a tick in the box. If that person left the next day we would not be down scored. But what we really want is to have that person work here for two years. It is not something we are told to do. We want to do it. Working at Lendlease is very different to working elsewhere,” Heasman says.
He adds: “Elephant & Castle has been in decline for a number of years. We are restoring it to its former glories. We are five years into a 15-year project. We spend more time here than with our families. We understand what it needs, what makes it tick.
“I cannot think of a better way to contribute to a local community than by creating local employment opportunities.”
No doubt Dusseldorp would have agreed.
What is Be Onsite?
Be Onsite was established by Lendlease in 2007 as a not-for-profit company. The aim was:
• to provide training and sustained employment in the property sector to people from socially excluded groups;
• to address the industry-wide problem of hiring a skilled workforce across the supply chain, in a socially responsible way.
Case study: Yusufu’s story
One beneficiary of Elephant Park’s employment creation is ex-offender Yusufu Kamara who spent three years in prison for a drug offence.
After his release in 2014, Kamara, 35, joined Lendlease’s Be Onsite scheme.
Since joining, Kamara has retained permanent employment and is now a lift operator at Clipfine, which provides the site logistics and security for Elephant Park.
Kamara says: “While in prison I had a lot of time to think and decided that I could not let my past destroy my future. I was determined to move forward and make a better life for myself and my family.
“I knew I wanted a job in construction, but it was the Be Onsite team who helped me to make that a reality. I have gained a trade, learnt new skills, and am now even being asked to help train new recruits.
“The process has been completely transformative for me. I have a job I enjoy and am now able to provide a good life for my family.”
