Over the past year, we have helped 900 people with autism or a learning, physical or sensory disability to find work placements through our Surrey Choices EmployAbility service.
The success of the service was celebrated recently at our Making a Difference awards where we highlighted what a difference being within a work environment can make to our customers lives. However, it’s not just our customers who have seen the advantages – some of the biggest employers in the country have benefitted from adding hard working, enthusiastic and skilled individuals to their teams.
Sainsbury’s are one of the oldest established retailers – and one of the largest, but still manage to invent, impress and deliver fresh ideas to the market. It’s this unique mix of experience and inspiration that makes shopping and working with them such a unique career choice.
Sainsbury’s have offered a number of work placements and have been supportive to a long-standing employability customer. They offered exceptional support to Adam Crocker in particular during his initial work placement and then offered him a permanent position. He has now worked for Sainsbury’s for three years and continues to grow in confidence.
Louise Slade works for Sainsbury’s, she told us:
“Whilst Sainsbury’s is a company that most people have heard of, each store can be quite different. At Godalming, we’re a very large store with over 400 members of staff, serving thousands of customers a week at our tills, in our cafe and petrol station, and at people’s front doors.
From lovingly made, fresh bread, baked on site, to displaying our highly sought after clothing range, our teams have to be highly skilled with many trained to know about the people, the products and the processes involved across several disciplines in the store.
“Without our brilliant staff, we would not achieve what we set out to achieve each day. Our passion is our people, and we couldn’t be more delighted to be receiving this award. We love what we do, watching people grow and develop, and with Adam it has been every bit the same. Working alongside this courageous gentleman has been a delight, seeing him grow in confidence and become an integral part of the team.”
Sainsbury’s have offered a number of work placements and have been supportive to a long-standing EmployAbility customer. They offered exceptional support to Adam Crocker in particular during his initial work placement and then offered him a permanent position. He has now worked for Sainsbury’s for three years and continues to grow in confidence.