A4e founder spearheads return to work initiative
Entrepreneur Emma Harrison is spearheading a new initiative aimed at helping families get back to work with the support of the coalition government.
Harrison, the founder of A4e, a Sheffield-based employment services provider with a turnover close to £200m, told Insider that the business, which was established in 1991 to provide training solutions for out of work steel workers in Sheffield, now operated in 12 countries worldwide "exporting welfare reform".
With job losses back on the agenda, did Harrison notice any similarities with the decline in the steel industry?
"The similarity is there are a lot of people losing their jobs at the same time which makes it more threatening. People can lose hope," she said.
Harrison is opening A4e's tenth Vox Centre at Sheffield Wednesday Football Club tomorrow, a scheme for helping young people from disadvantaged backgrounds with on-site training in a number of different fields that was devised by a member of A4e's admin team.
Harrison said the Vox centres had been a success.
"No-one has paid a penny to set up them. A4e has put all the money in and the local authorities pay as they go. It's a fascinating new model. They just buy a place when they want one."
Her business manages £300m of government training contracts, but was unconcerned by public sector cuts.
"The work we do is such good value it makes good sense for the public sector to use it," she says. Arguing the service reduces the eventual costs, Harrison added: "They consider it to be good value for money."
A4e now operates around the world employing more than 3,300 people, as Harrison explained: "We work in 12 countries now. The expansion started about seven years ago. We're everywhere from Australia to India to European countries. It's effectively taking the very best of what we find and exporting welfare reform."
Working in association with the coalition government in a personal capacity, Harrison said her latest scheme, Working Families Everywhere, was proving successful.
"Talking about the family has really rung bells with people."
