10 ways to incorporate social value into your recruitment business

You’d be forgiven for thinking that Social Value is just the latest buzzword doing the rounds. But ignore it at your peril – it represents possibly one of the biggest changes to hit the recruitment sector since IR35, certainly for those operating in the public sector.

Why is Social Value a hot topic?

So, what’s happening? With the introduction of the Procurement Act 2023, it will be mandatory law to write a minimum of 10% high-quality social value into all public sector procurement bids – that applies to all tenders for central government and its various agencies, the NHS and local authorities.

Contracts will no longer be awarded solely on price or quality. Instead bids must include social value and wellbeing, and this will be explicitly evaluated by all government procurement officers. This legal shift gives recruitment agencies an opportunity to stand out by embedding social value into their operations, winning new business and retaining clients in an increasingly competitive market. 

Incorporating social value into your recruitment business might actually be easier than you think – in fact, some areas of your operations may already contribute to it. Here are 10 ways to help you enhance social value activity within your business, and formalise your existing efforts. 

1. Start with the basics

Transforming your business to embed social value doesn’t happen overnight. Start with small manageable steps and scale up as your team and processes evolve. Introduce recycling bins, phase out single use plastics, organise car sharing, walking or cycling initiatives or partner with a local charity. Small changes can have a big social impact. 

2. Listen to your stakeholders

Align your social value efforts with your business’s mission, vision and values. Create a culture where social impact is integrated naturally into your everyday operations. By listening to your employees, clients, suppliers and the wider community, you can ensure that your social value initiatives benefit all stakeholders.  

3. Diverse and inclusive hiring practices

Promote equal opportunities by ensuring that your recruitment process is open to all. This can involve actively reaching out to underrepresented groups, whether it’s women in leadership roles, ethnic minorities or people with disabilities. By prioritising diversity and inclusion, you demonstrate a commitment to positive societal change, and this will resonate with clients and candidates alike. 

4. Apprenticeships and training programs

Offer apprenticeships or training schemes within your agency or through your clients. This builds skills and provides opportunities for individuals who might otherwise struggle to gain experience, particularly young people and people form marginalised backgrounds. There are also initiatives to share excess Apprenticeship Levy funds back into businesses in your local community, like Transfer to Transform. 

5. Wellbeing initiatives for candidates and staff

Promoting mental and physical health is another vital way to integrate social value. For instance, offering mental health support for your employees, as well as ensuring the workers you place have access to similar resources, creates a healthier, more supportive environment. Encouraging flexible working arrangements or providing resources for stress management are small steps with significant impacts. 

6. Partner with charitable and community organisations

Use your expertise to support your wider society. For recruitment agencies this could mean partnering with charities and local community organisations to offer job seeking support to disadvantaged groups. Whether providing free CV workshops or interview prep, this kind of community engagement has significant social value and can also form part of your business’s Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) strategy.  

7. Build Social Value into client and supplier contracts

As the emphasis on social value grows, ensure that clients and partner organisations are on board – this works both up and down the supply chain. Changes such as AWR and IR35 are now fully embedded in how we do business, and social value will be no different. By ensuring that your clients and suppliers are “social value ready”, you position your business as a forward-thinking leader in this area. 

8. Sustainable business practices

Sustainability is a core aspect of social value and this begins with small steps such as reducing energy consumption in the office to becoming “paperless” by embracing digital as much as possible. Even these simple measures demonstrate commitment to reducing your business’s carbon footprint and therefore add social value. 

9. Lead from the top

A successful commitment to social value starts with leadership. Businesses that excel in this area often have directors who actively promote and participate in social value initiatives. Encourage your leadership team to be role models by engaging in social value projects, showing the rest of the business how vital these efforts are. 

10. Measure and report social value

Have systems and processes in place to measure and report the social value your business creates. This could be through data on the number of jobs placed in disadvantaged communities, the carbon savings from going digital, or the success rates of apprenticeship schemes. By tracking and documenting these impacts, you make social value a visible, measurable part of your business strategy.

Your Social Value partner

As the Procurement Act 2023 is set to transform how public sector contracts are awarded, becoming social value ready is more important than ever. By embedding social value into your recruitment business, you not only fulfil an ethical and moral obligation, but also improve your chances of retaining public sector contracts and securing new ones. 

At Liquid Friday, we’re proud to be the only umbrella company to be accredited as social value-ready. This accreditation ensures we can better support our recruitment partners in securing public tenders and unlocking new opportunities.