Home-Start Greenwich: Implementing the real Living Wage in the Charity Sector
Home-Start Greenwich is an independent charity affiliated to Home-Start UK that has been offering support and helping families with young children in the Royal Borough of Greenwich for over 25 years. We spoke to them about their experience of becoming a Living Wage Employer, and the difference it's made to them and their workforce.
Tell us a bit about Home-Start Greenwich
We provide a range of support to pregnant women, children aged 0-5 and their parents and carers in Greenwich, including running children’s centres and nurseries. We celebrated Home-Start Greenwich’s 30th anniversary in 2024, and in the last decade we’ve expanded our services and workforce from less than 10 to around 70.
Why was it important for you to pay the real Living Wage and accredit as a Living Wage Employer?
We take a holistic approach to helping families all the way from childcare and children’s centres to providing emergency funds and white goods. We know that some of our employees are facing the same challenges as the families we help, and in some cases they’re one and the same so making sure our staff are properly paid is an important part of what we do. We saw a real increase in families struggling during Covid and the subsequent cost of living crisis, so helping relieve that pressure is really important.
We have a social responsibility, and that means we have a responsibility to work effectively. We want to create a workforce that really wants to work for us, that celebrates us and thinks of us as a great place to work and so the Real Living Wage forms an important part of our employee value proposition.
How did you go about implementing the Real Living Wage?
Historically we were quite a small organisation, but after Every Child Matters, a government initiative that increased funding for children's services, we started to grow and work more in partnership with local government. That’s what initially moved us to Living Wage accreditation. In 2019 we started to really look at what the Real Living Wage meant to us and became more purposeful and intentional about how it would help us support our workforce.
Implementing the Real Living Wage was part of an organisational restructure. We bought our finance and HR functions in-house, and started looking at 5 year budget projections. We made the real Living Wage one of our strategic pillars, and alongside it we also considered a number of other options for how we could help our staff like increased maternity leave.
What benefits have come from paying the real Living Wage
As the leader of Home-Start Greenwich, committing to the Real Living Wage really gave me a renewed sense of purpose and direction. I’m always proud to get thank you notes from staff.
A lot of our work is external facing and talking about our impact, so being part of the Living Wage movement gives us the confidence that we’re doing our best to support our own workforce and making a difference to them as well.
The Real Living Wage helps us develop a sustainable workforce. By providing a proper wage and stability for our workers, they can give us their best without worrying about picking up second jobs or additional hours and that’s reflected in their motivation and loyalty.