Under the partnership, funding will be increased by one third and invested into projects that will increase the percentage of young people from BAME backgrounds the pub group employs through The Prince’s Trust programmes.
The group says its ambition is to support 1,000 young people into its workforce over the five-year period, increasing the percentage of young people from minority ethnic backgrounds entering the business through the partnership from 24% currently to 40% by year five.
Greene King has worked in partnership with The Prince’s Trust for four years and says it has supported 440 young people across the UK through its Get into Hospitality and Ready to Work programmes.
It pledged £20,000 to the trust’s Young Persons’ Relief Fund at the start of the Coronavirus pandemic to help the charity provide much needed practical and emotional support to young people’s across as range of areas from wellbeing to education.
Greene King was founded in the early 19th century by Benjamin Greene, one of 47,000 people who benefited from the UK Government’s decision to compensate Britons when slavery was abolished in 1833.
In June it apologised for its historic links to the slave trade and pledged to donate money to BAME communities and as well as create a diversity and inclusion strategy. As part of its strategy it has formed an employee-led race diversity group and has begun a data gathering exercise among the company’s 38,000-strong workforce to capture ethnicity, it says.
“We care about building a diverse workforce that represents the society we live in,” says Greene King CEO Nick Mackenzie.
“The young people we recruit into our business today will be the business leaders of tomorrow and so it is vital that we address the diversity imbalance across our business and create opportunities that encourage young people from BAME communities to join us.”
