Five Lamps is a ‘best’ company to work for yet again!
Five Lamps are celebrating after being placed in The Sunday Times 100 Best Not-for-Profit Organisations to Work For list for the third year.
This is a fantastic achievement for the organisation, who work hard to create possibilities and improve the lives of disadvantaged people by helping them to find work, start their own business, improve their finances and improve the aspirations of young people.
Five Lamps were placed at number 28 on the list because of their best employment practice, with staff strongly feeling that they can make a positive contribution to the charity’s success. 82% of staff felt that what is expected of them is clear – only two other small organisations did better. The organisation was ranked high on the list for employee health and wellbeing – employees gave the top score for not being under too much pressure to concentrate at work.
Graeme Oram, Chief Executive said
“Everybody at Five Lamps is absolutely thrilled at our recognition as a great place to work. We have for some time understood just how important it is to invest in the professional and social development of our staff. This result shows what we have always believed, that a positive and motivated team of committed and talented people are best placed to create possibilities and change the lives of the thousands of people each year who use our services”
Five Lamps provide a wide range of services to over 25,000 socially and financially excluded individuals across the North East and Yorkshire each year through its three integrated business divisions – Economic Development; Financial Inclusion & Housing and Youth Services.
The impact of our works spans supporting long-term unemployed people back into work; providing training, employment and qualifications to NEET young people; supporting customers on their enterprise journey from enterprise coaching, mentoring, business planning and accessing finance for start-ups; providing evening and weekend youth club activities; refurbishing and letting previously long term empty properties; systematically stripping away the barriers that face troubled families; delivering welfare assistance programmes in Stockton, County Durham and Northumberland; providing affordable personal loans to individuals and homeowners who are unable to access mainstream support and providing enterprise, financial inclusion and energy advice for young people and vulnerable groups.
Five Lamps has nearly 30 years of experience of engaging and supporting people through crises. Often we are told by our customers that the reason they continue to engage with us is that we are different to statutory services in our inclusive and flexible approach, attitude, service accessibility and the way in which we offer ongoing support by ˜staying close” to our customers. We recognise that our customers require an individualised service and we are in a position to provide this. It is rare for projects to be able to holistically address a range of social and economic issues within a single organisation, however we recognise that families often face multiple barriers and we are unique in providing such an integrated and impactful service delivery model.
The Sunday Times 100 Best Not-for-Profit Organisations to Work For 2014 List is published in the appointments section of The Sunday Times on Sunday 16 March 2014.