Our story

People & Work is an independent charity, established in 1984, working in Wales.

We set up as People and Work Unit but now just go by People and Work. Over the years people have often asked what our name means – we have been mistaken for an employment agency and often called People in Work or even The People’s Work Unit. For our founders the confusion was deliberate, because it has helped us avoid being pigeon holed.

We work with the public, voluntary and community sectors occupying a liminal space between them. In each case our focus is that our work should support agencies and community organisations to develop what they do, to be as effective as they can, whether this is neurodevelopmental services supporting families; the inclusiveness of education services; how to evaluate community work; or how to support community leaders. Our model has always included earning income from evaluation and research work for the voluntary and public sectors and having a mixed funding base for community work and this has enabled us to preserve our independence over the years.

What have we done?

We have worked with individuals and with whole communities; with the services that support them (including education, health, social care, employment support); and with community and voluntary organisations that work with them. From the beginning People and Work has seen the elements of people’s relationship with work as encompassing all aspects of their life experience and this is what has shaped our work. We have focused on:

• Education and qualifications – over the years people have needed more qualifications, increasingly needing evidence of success even for low skilled work: as one project participant remarked ‘the employer can see that if you didn’t bother at school you probably won’t bother in work’;

• Individual capabilities: some people find gaining skills and qualifications easier than others; some people have leadership qualities

• Community capabilities: Residents of poorer communities often lack the necessary resources, opportunities, and capabilities to find and maintain jobs with decent pay, so they are less likely to work than people living in higher income communities (U S Bureau of Labour Statistics March 2020)

• Equality of access to opportunities – disability and health, growing up in poverty or in difficult circumstances, where you live, caring responsibilities etc…. all impact on access to opportunities

• The quality of the help available – CFW+; PaCE etc…. services that offer support do not always meet needs

• Changing skills required – digital literacy; social and emotional literacy

• Poverty – its mitigation, understanding its impact, how it shapes capacity

“At its core People and Work has a culture of kindness. What People and Work has always stood for, what it seeks to do in practice and what it encourages society to become is based on kindness towards each other and society. This includes personal issues and social, economic and political justice. I believe these cannot be separated. People and Work has never been a ‘shouting from the rooftops’ organisation but has provided the research and practical evidence which, if followed to its logical conclusion, should lead to a kinder, more just world”.

-James Hall