Guest blog by Sandy MacDonald, Head of Sustainability, Standard Life. Sandy tweets @sl_sandymac.
When I received an invitation to the launch of the Living Wage Friendly Funder scheme, I was immediately interested. My day job includes oversight of Standard Life's charity partnerships, and as a voluntary trustee of a charity too, I have some insight in to what it's like to be on the other side of funding too. So a scheme which helps Charities to pay the Living Wage to grant funded roles sounded like a great idea.
As it happens, the trustees of Standard Life Charitable Trust had already discussed Living Wage. The main focus of the Trust currently is on employability and last year, the Trustees were very clear that when we are funding roles and internships for young people as part of our programmes, we should adhere to the same values as we do as an employer at Standard Life Plc. We strongly believe in the Living Wage and a fair day's pay for a fair day's work. We believe it's more sustainable and makes commercial sense, thanks to the positive impact on engagement, productivity, absence and turnover. And as well as supporting people and their communities today, Living Wage helps people to plan for their future too, as they are more likely to be able to save and to have choices. This is core to what we do at Standard Life. All of these principles apply equally in the voluntary sector, and sometimes the impact can be even more critical.
Our Living Wage commitment already covered our employees, suppliers, contractors and interns, and it just made sense to extend our commitment so when we're agreeing funding with charities we support they also know we value what they're doing for us enough to pay them a fair wage. So it was an easy decision, really. It's vital that a charity worker whose output relies on building relationships with the charity's beneficiaries - or who is dealing with difficult emotional circumstances on a regular basis as part of their work - is engaged, knows they are valued, and can focus on their job and be motivated to stay. In my experience, charities always want to do the right thing and recognise their employees as the key mechanism they have to achieve their charitable aims. However, funding arrangements are often restrictive, especially in the current climate and can force them to make difficult decisions.
As well as the impact we hope it will have directly, I also hope that by being a Friendly Funder we can help to l encourage other companies, foundations and trusts to consider whether supporting the Living Wage is more consistent with their own objectives and values. I appreciate it will be more difficult for some than others to make a commitment to the Living Wage, but it's definitely something that can be worked towards over time if it can't be achieved overnight. As well as the very real human impact that addressing low pay in the third sector will have, funding more and more posts at the Living Wage can make a huge difference to the sustainability of the third sector and reinforces how we all value the vital role the sector plays in society.
Find out more about the Friendly Funder Scheme and Standard Life's approach to supporting people and communities.