London based ethical recruitment platform supports “more than 330 homeless people into work”

With the hospitality industry being impacted by both Brexit and the pandemic, REEF, Tossed, and Wahaca are among the first businesses to partner with ethical recruitment platform Beam.

The social enterprise works to provide training and teach new skills to people living in homeless hostels, refuges and other forms of temporary housing.

So far, a total of 100 employers have signed up to Beam’s ethical recruitment platform, Beam Recruit, designed to be a hassle-free way for employers to hire candidates from disadvantaged backgrounds and help plug the skills gap.

Since March 2020, Beam Recruit has supported more than 330 homeless people into work, with an emphasis on roles that have seen a surge in demand during the pandemic. Candidates are benefitting from an average starting salary of £25k.

Alex Stephany, founder and CEO of Beam, said: “Successful companies need talent to grow, and the hospitality industry has been really badly hit by what many are calling the ‘perfect storm’ of the pandemic and Brexit.

“With diversity being a crucial part of any effective team, seeking employees via non-traditional routes should help them to secure that necessary resilience.”

Carl Segal, Chief People Officer at REEF said: “At REEF we regard this initiative by Beam as crucially important and we are very proud to support its development in the UK.

“REEF is the neighbourhood company, connecting the world to your block, and we firmly believe that our neighbourhood hubs should be a driver of job creation and equal opportunities for everyone.”

Angelina Harrisson, Brand Director at Tossed said: “We’re delighted to be partnering with Beam to help fill some of our Team member vacancies at Tossed. With hospitality struggling to find great people it’s a real positive to be able to reach talent that may have otherwise been prevented from accessing a career in our industry.”

Sophie Hempstead, Head of People at Wahaca said: “Great workers can be found everywhere. The work that Beam does helps to put people who are too often overlooked in society on a level playing field to access employment.”