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Making social mobility a reality with Project Flourish
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Hays is now an official activator of The Royal Foundation’s Homewards programme. We’ll be working with Homewards to create employment pathways for those experiencing, or at risk of homelessness across the six Homewards locations – Aberdeen, Bournemouth, Lambeth, Newport, Northen Ireland, and Sheffield – building on the work we’ve already developed with Project Flourish, created in collaboration with EveryYouth.
Homewards is a five-year programme created by Prince William and The Royal Foundation of The Prince and Princess of Wales that aims to demonstrate that it is possible to end homelessness - making it rare, brief, and unrepeated.
Jamie Houlders, Project Flourish Lead and Karen Young, Social and Environmental Purpose Lead at Hays joined the launch of the partnership at Aberdeen Foyer to deliver employer workshops and discussions – demonstrating the work of Project Flourish so far to Prince William and podcast host and influencer Steven Bartlett.
We were joined by representatives from leading employers Amey and Specsavers who have solidified their commitment in supporting Project Flourish.
The number of young people experiencing or at risk of homelessness is continually rising, exacerbated by economic concerns, employment barriers, and deepening social rifts. But youth homelessness doesn’t have to be a reality, and the right opportunities can make all the difference. Our response is Project Flourish: a groundbreaking, pro-bono employability service created in collaboration in with EveryYouth, our UK charity partner.
Leveraging our world of work capabilities, and bringing together experts from across organisations, we’re helping disadvantaged young people secure jobs with real prospects, and equipping employers with the skills and knowledge needed to support their journeys.
In this video, we hear from Nick Connolly, CEO, EveryYouth, Karen Young Social and Environmental Purpose Director, Hays, and Jamie Houlders, Project Flourish Lead, Hays, about this groundbreaking initiative.
How it works: our employability service in five steps
Collaboration is at the heart of Project Flourish. We work with employers who share our goal to create a more equitable world of work and invest in future generations. If you have a proven record of fair employment practices, a willingness to learn with us, and a commitment to providing a young person quality mentorship, you can expect a wealth of support and a unique opportunity to help create lasting change.
We support each young person throughout the recruitment process, and advise participating employers on inclusive hiring practices, designed to assess skills and behaviours over work experience. We’ll also help shape your DE&I strategies to create supportive and positive cultures that allow young people to flourish, and empower your organisation to develop more diverse and innovative teams.
To create an environment where young people can succeed from their first day, we deliver free ‘Employer Awareness Sessions’ to your teams, based on Psychologically Informed Environment (PIE) principles tailored for employers of disadvantaged young people. And to help overcome the unique challenges that each young person faces, the Hays Super Boost bursary provides unprecedented support; from funding essentials such as clothing, food, and accommodation, to covering transportation and pastoral support.
Once a young person has been successfully integrated into their new role, we continue to provide them dedicated support and intervention to scaffold their professional journey and increase the value they bring to your business. We bring in experts across organisations to ensure the continued success of a young person’s placement, including dedicated mentor support providing pastoral and ‘on the job’ care, and additional expert consultation for the young person’s individual needs, such as award-winning financial education via our partners at FinWell. And no matter where they are based, each young person can access our remote Learning Management System (LMS) – a digital hub for employability, wellbeing and upskilling resources – offering continuous support for their evolving needs.
Project Flourish is the only initiative of its kind to be validated by Social Value Portal – industry-leaders in measuring social value – offering a unique opportunity for organisations to deliver long-term outcomes. By taking part in Project Flourish, we’ll work closely with you to continually improve processes and highlight how your efforts have contributed to the bigger picture, optimising your social purpose strategy and elevating your EVP.
Insights into our Project Flourish journey at Hays
As a Homewards Activator, we’re securing commitments for job and training opportunities, addressing needs from Local Action Plans, and providing insights to overcome employment barriers for those facing homelessness. Discover how your organisation can join us in making a lasting impact.
Through Project Flourish, I hired a young person who had been through extreme hardship. Here’s my experience and why I think other employers should get involved too.
Discover how organisations can provide young people meaningful employment opportunities and help break the cycle of youth homelessness through closer collaboration.
As homelessness numbers are on the rise, find out what your organisation can do to help, from supporting current employees to hiring homeless people.
An in-depth look at the rising homelessness in England, misconceptions about hiring homeless individuals, and the systemic barriers they face in securing employment.
I’m Jamie, project lead of Flourish. I’m determined to help some of the most disadvantaged young people in the UK gain meaningful employment, and to help get them out of homelessness. Follow my three-day visit to London to support this mission.
Lesley Trapasso, Bid Director at Hays, and Akame Hotaru, Bid Administrator at Hays, talk about their experience with Project Flourish. Akame was hired into Lesley’s team through Project Flourish, and passed her probation with flying colours. Following a difficult time in Akame’s life, securing her first corporate role has given her the fresh start she deserved. Watch this video to find out more about their success story.
To start your Flourish journey, fill out our enquiry form and our team will be in touch.
Celebrating our achievements: Our award-winning highlights with Project Flourish
We were delighted to win the Creating Capability award category at the Social Value Awards 2024, recognising the exciting work we’ve been doing as part of Project Flourish, created in collaboration with EveryYouth – helping to overcome barriers to work for young people facing homelessness.
The award acknowledges our work in building skills and capacity to deliver social impact by broadening the knowledge of our internal teams, and by collaborating with, supporting and upskilling charitable organisations, potential employers and wider partner organisations.
Hays was awarded the Best Newcomer – Employer award at Movement to Work’s Youth Employability Awards 2025, recognising our commitment to creating a fairer world of work for young people.
Hays became a member of Movement to Work in 2024, sharing the organisation’s ethos to provide high-quality employment opportunities for disadvantaged young people, and equipping employers with the knowledge, resources and training to make the most of their talents.
We took home the Community Impact of the Year Award as part of the REC Awards 2024, demonstrating our industry-leading commitment to social imperatives, with Project Flourish playing a leading role in this accomplishment.
Helping for your tomorrow
People are at the centre of everything we do here at Hays. Not only do we believe that the right job can transform a person’s life – and that the right individual can uplift an organisation – but that our tenure and expertise can help create a better tomorrow for us all. As a leading recruitment and workforce solutions provider, we’re in a unique position to enable real change; both on a local and national scale. The value of our ‘Helping for your tomorrow’ programme can be seen through our Flourish collaboration with EveryYouth, designed to tackle inequality in employment opportunities. Combined with our year-round fundraising events for EveryYouth, we’ve created a lasting social impact. To date, we’ve raised over £400,000 in funds for EveryYouth’s Employability Programme, placing 300 young people into an employment, education or training pathways, or alternatively funding 16,000 hours of 1-2-1 job coaching support with a specialist coach. And of young people accessing this support, 85% report greater independence and 88% feel more confident.
Through this unique recruitment partnership, we’re committed to improving the social mobility of the most disadvantaged young people in the country and helping to end youth homelessness.
We're delighted to be working with FinWELL to understand and improve financial wellbeing, empower a healthier relationship with money and better mental health too.
Find out more: Project Flourish FAQs
The aim of our employability and career support programme is to help some of the most disadvantaged young people in finding and sustaining meaningful employment. We want to prove that social mobility can be possible for everyone, including those facing homelessness and poverty. In collaboration with charity EveryYouth, and their delivery partner charity network, we’re supporting their mission to end youth homelessness.
Our programme provides disadvantaged young people the skills and tools needed to secure and succeed in meaningful employment, as well as supports the employer to create inclusive processes and positive environments, enabling the young people to ‘Flourish.’
There are many barriers which prevent them from gaining and importantly, sustaining, meaningful employment. Sometimes, they haven’t had the close support networks we may take for granted, or they may have lived through traumatic experiences which impact their behaviour and confidence.
Some may have had disruptions in education, resulting in fewer qualifications. Others don’t have access to financial support or struggle with navigating the benefits system, making it extremely difficult for disadvantaged young people to compete with their peers for job vacancies.
Homelessness is a vicious cycle: if a young person doesn’t have a fixed address, it can be challenging to secure employment, which then creates further barriers to finding a job. By breaking this cycle, we prove that social mobility is possible, and we help young people have equal career opportunities. We see employment as a critical element to breaking this cycle as all young people deserve to ‘flourish’ in work and life.
The bursary is highly flexible, helping to finance a range of supporting measures designed to overcomes the unique challenges that each young person faces. We’ve contributed an initial £60,000 for the bursary, which has so far helped fund essentials, such as clothing, food, accommodation and pastoral support, but can also be used to deliver more bespoke intervention, such as transportation, driving lessons and more.
We collaborate with a range of organisations who help support the mission of Project Flourish
As a signatory to Crisis’ Homelessness Alliance, and a member on the advisory board, Project Flourish is providing insights through pilots to support our pledge to prevent and end homelessness through inclusive and supportive employment practices.
We’re award-winning members of Movement to Work’s employer-led initiative to tackle youth unemployment in the UK, expanding our networks and helping to facilitate knowledge sharing.
Our collaborative partners at FinWELL offer bespoke financial education, training, guidance and support services for young people. And for every young person enrolled with FinWell, they contribute 10% back to our bursary scheme, synergising good business and social value.
We’re partnered with AutonoMe to provide greater support to neurodivergent people, leveraging the organisation’s expert guidance and digital content to provide staff and employers essential training and knowledge.
The Bloomfield Trust and the National Autistic Society’s Autism at Work programme aims to bridge the gap between skills shortages in industry and talented autistic candidates.
Hays Inspire Hays Skills Pret Foundation YMCA Go1 The Y
