Working Links

Working Links was formed in 2000 to address the challenges faced by long-term
unemployed people and help them back into sustainable work.

Initially our shareholders were the Government through the Shareholder Executive, Cap Gemini and Manpower. For five years, we showed that the public-private model worked exceptionally well, and in May 2005 we’d helped 50,000 people into work.

We’re a very ambitious organisation, and we wanted bigger and better things – a larger workforce, wider presence in every region, and we wanted to take Working Links abroad. We knew that to achieve our goals we’d need a sound organisational structure and investors who shared our core values as a business so we could make a difference to even more peoples lives.

So in 2006 Mission Australia joined our shareholder group, and we became the first public-private-voluntary organisation in Great Britain. Very much like us, Mission Australia runs employment and training services for unemployed people. For more information please visit the Mission Australia website.

Through the addition of Mission Australia to our shareholder board, we’ve been able to:

• strengthen our capacity to build long term value;
• help more disadvantaged people in lots of different circumstances;
• become more established in markets, such as skills social justice, health and communities; and
• begin our thinking on International markets through a new team which we set up at the end of 2008.

We think that our blend of private, public and voluntary sector expertise puts
us in a great position to be able to deliver and influence plans for welfare reform.

In 2008, we reached the milestone of having helped 100,000 people into work. And
the way our business has evolved means we’re ideally placed to take Working
Links forward and continue to change lives and create futures.