Social Value
Measuring social and local economic value to support your projects and communities.
Thinking CommunityWe measure our social and local economic value to determine our work’s real-world impact on the communities that we live in and serve. Since the inception of our Thinking Community, we have tracked social value by calculating our material, labour, and capital inputs and the positive outcomes communicated directly by our customers.
£70 million
Worth long-term strategy for social value
422 hours
provided to community projects
We have now developed a long-term nationwide strategy for deliver social value and reported over £70m for 2021.
Using measurement and valuation principles from the National TOMs (Themes, Outcomes and Measures) framework, we have achieved the figures through a combination of live project delivery and local initiatives designed to support communities. These include community investments, employee wellbeing support and personal development.
Our £70m social value is broken into four themes – employment and economic opportunities, social and environmental benefits. We use our bespoke Social Value Calculator across all projects to quantify social value contributions, including local employment, apprenticeship hours, money spent with the UK supply chain and carbon savings. It also allows us to develop a localised social value strategy for individual contracts or wider regional partnerships.
Social value is embedded within our sector. Road markings enable the safe and efficient use of the UK road network, helping connect people across the country.
However, similarly to the wider construction industry, the road marking sector faces a chronic skills shortage. At WJ Group, we recognise that without tackling this skills gap, our ability to operate and continue to deliver real social value would reduce.
To address this, we established the WJ Training Academy in 2013 to train our workforce and support creating a culture that prioritises training and development. A culture that attracts new people whilst retaining and enhancing the vital skills we already have in the company. This is a sector-leading training scheme that has won three national awards
The Training Academy is responsible for all training throughout the group, from our specialist road marking apprenticeships delivered in conjunction with the Road Safety Marking Association, to courses required on-site, driver training and much more. It even delivers professional engineering qualifications through collaboration with the Institute of Highways Engineers.
Many of these courses also create additional social value for our communities, such as our Safe Urban Driving training, which sees our drivers learn about the challenges of being a vulnerable road user. Our investment ensures our people are suitably qualified and empowered to develop and achieve their professional aspirations.
Achievement
491.23
People FTE employed in the UK
£16.8K
Invested in mental health campaign
29,034
Tonnes of Co2 saved decarbonisation
£25K
Invested in COVID-19 support to local authorities and VCSEs
106 hours
Spent on local school and college visits
£50.6M
Spend with MSMEs in the UK
1044
Weeks of apprenticeship opportunity
£28K
Invested towards community projects
4 hours
Of climate change training for supply chain staff
£12.7M
Spend with the supply chain in the UK
17 hours
Dedicated to supporting young people into work
£7K
Donated to VCSEs for equipment and resources
157 voluntary hours
To support VCSEs
£42K
Spend with VCSEs in the UK
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