Community Engagement Assessment 1: Marks & Spencer Report Analysis

This report analyzes Marks & Spencer's community engagement initiatives, focusing on their best practices and stakeholder participation. The introduction defines community engagement and highlights Marks & Spencer's commitment to it. The main body examines the company's Community Transformation Program, launched as part of Plan A 2025, detailing its initiatives across various communities, including support for poverty reduction, mental health, and skill development. It outlines specific activities like CV support, food surplus programs, Frazzled Cafes, and employee volunteering. The report also discusses M&S's broader commitments, such as reducing food waste and supporting employee volunteering, and the company's approach to community engagement across its value chain. The conclusion emphasizes the effectiveness of M&S's programs and recommends employee training and increased volunteer participation. The report is a comprehensive look at how Marks & Spencer engages with communities and stakeholders, demonstrating the importance of social responsibility and sustainable business practices.

Community
Engagement
Assessment 1

Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
Analysis of the best practices of organisation specifically on community engagement and
participation of stakeholders...................................................................................................1
CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS............................................................................5
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................6

INTRODUCTION
Community engagement is defined as the process of working collaboratively with groups of
individuals affiliated through geographic proximity, similar situations or similar interest in order
to address the issues or problems affecting wellbeing of individuals. It is a powerful approach for
bringing about behavioural and environmental changes which will enhance the health of
community and society as well as its members. Marks & Spencer is a leading organisation which
is established in 1884 and its headquarters is located in London, United Kingdom. This report
covers analysis of best practices of company on community engagement and participation of
stakeholders.
MAIN BODY
Analysis of the best practices of organisation specifically on community engagement and
participation of stakeholders
Community engagement is a strategic process with particular purpose of working along
with identified group of individuals in order to address issues that affect their wellbeing.
Community engagement often includes coalitions and partnership which assist in mobilizing
resources as well as impact systems and alter relationship among partners and for changing
practices, policies and programs, it serves as catalyst. Marks and Spencer is one of the leading
organisation which is highly committed towards taking initiatives associated with community
engagement and participation of stakeholders. A global community program has developed by
Marks and Spencer to make sure that it emphasizes on developing resilient supply chain
communities which will supply the company in decades to come.
As a part of plan A 2025, Marks and Spencer announce its major Community
Transformation Program which is this new plan that aims to support 1000 communities, assist
10 million individuals live happier and healthier lives as well as convert the company into a zero
waste business. This pioneering program will see company work with charity partners and local
councils in order to support communities to deliver measurable and positive change. The
community transformation program of Marks and Spencer was launched on 'Make it Matter Day'
- when the company is encouraging the United Kingdom to make each decision count and spend
it well. The program was launched in the year 2017 when it was initially being piloted in around
10 communities for over two years, when company was trial many actions developed to tackle
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the issues or problems which matter the most to communities - like poverty, loneliness, mental
health and wellbeing, skill shortages and unemployment. By year 2023, successful initiatives
will be executed to further 100 locations as well as Lawrence will be shared with around 1,000
locations by year 2025 (M&S ANNOUNCES MAJOR NEW COMMUNITY
TRANSFORMATION PROGRAMME, 2017). For around 133 years, the company has been
taken initiatives for social change and taking positive actions and play leading role in enabling
communities and customers to live healthier and happier lives.
Through the wide store network in United Kingdom, the organisation is seeing more
evidence that community require support from partners to deliver the change positively. The
company have looked at what community requires, which are the key issues life social inclusion,
access to employability skills, support for mental health issues and play a crucial role in making
the difference to the lives of community. The company was started with 10 communities so that
it can learn, adapt and formulate an agile approach which enable it to support thousands of
communities by year 2025. Currently, 10 communities of Marks and Spencer includes Bradford,
London borough of Newham, Liverpool, Birmingham, Glasgow, Derry Londonderry,
Middlesbrough, Rochdale, Norwich and Merthyr Tydfil. In all these communities, the company
trial locally tailored initiatives whose main aim is to enhance the happiness of residents and
social wellbeing through working with The Social Innovation Partnership in order to track the
way residents feel regarding their community - their positivity and connectedness towards a
community and weather they feel themselves as part of community.
In order to deliver the initiatives, Marks and Spencer work with local partners and councils
involving Royal Voluntary Service, Neighbourly, Business in the Community, Frazzled Cafe,
Power to Change and The Silver Line. In each of the locations provided above, programmes of
activities are executed which is expected to involve some or all bespoke initiatives. The activities
included in the community transformation program of Marks and Spencer are as follows:
 CV, interview support, career advice and work experience for school leavers.
 Support food surplus charities to cool bags and fund fridges in order to ensure that they
can administering volunteers to host special events and redistribute fresh food throughout
of the year. Marks and Spencer provide around 30000 Meals every year to the people
living in poverty and homeless individuals in 10 locations.
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 For the people who are in need of support or feeling stressed, it hosts frazzled cafes for
those people.
 The company provides support for children to start their schooling, involving around
10,000 pairs of plimsolls.
 A plan to develop one of the biggest friendship group in area in order to tackle exclusion
and loneliness through bringing the customers, local people and colleagues together by
the events at Marks and Spencer stores like tea parties, a volunteer network phone
buddies and walking clubs.
 It supports up to 100 startup community businesses which are led by as well as benefit for
local individuals in England's 7 communities through partnering with Power to Change in
order to combine grants of around 50000 pounds and advice on topics like supply chains,
customer research, business planning and digital development and access to skills. A
similar program is also developed with different partners for three communities in North
Ireland, Wales and Scotland.
 Employee volunteering - in this, the officers to donating their time to more than 700 local
community projects executed in all over the United Kingdom over the next 10 days.
 The proposals including High Street flowerbeds, green walls, urban gardens and City tree
planting have the potential to provide benefit 2 more than 1,50,000 individuals in 10
communities.
The plan A 2025 of company aims to support 1000 communities along with making the
company a zero waste business as well as to assist 10 million individuals to live healthy and
happier lives. The new commitments of company include:
 Halving food waste by year 2025.
 All the packaging of company to be widely recyclable by year 2022.
 Supporting the colleagues of Marks and Spencer all over the world to administer 1
million hours of their work time in community volunteering between year 2017 and 2025.
 All the main raw materials that company utilizes to come from sustainable source by year
2025.
 At least half of the food sales of company all over the world coming from healthy goods
by year 2022.
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 Assisting to raise 25 million pounds for charities tackling mental health issues, heart
disease, dementia, loneliness and cancer by year 2025.
 The company will reduce emission of greenhouse gas by 80 percent in its operations by
year 2030 and during the similar period of time, cut down emissions in supply chain by
around 13.3 m tonnes.
Marks & Spencer report on the progress of Plan A 2025 annually in the month of June as
well as the commitments are guaranteed through independent auditors and the own audit team of
Marks & Spencer. The company ensure to understand the changing needs of customers,
employees and local communities and put efforts to assist them to deal with issues like poverty
or unemployment as well as to enhance their health and wellbeing. Throughout the history of 130
years, the company supporting local communities and committed to support economic
prosperity, inclusive growth and social cohesion - by being relevant in global local
neighbourhoods. The main goal of community engagement program of Marks and Spencer is to
develop positive influence in society and enhance the lives of people. The company is also
committed to its stakeholders to help to understand issues in society and decide the role which
company can play in finding out the innovative solutions to help the people in society. The
company aims to take progressive approach for enhancing the engagement in community. The
approach of company to community engagement covers entire value chain as well as in involves
workers, customers and employees in supply chain, local communities and charity partners
around the globe. The company identified four ways in which it makes a difference as a retailer:
The company started its flagship employability program named as Marks & Start which
assists individuals who face barriers getting into work in order to gain experience and skills by
work placements. The company has supported more than 20000 single parents, homeless people,
people with disabilities or other health conditions and disadvantaged young people since the year
2004. Currently, The Prince's Trust, Remploy and Business in the Community assist Marks and
Spencer to deliver Marks & Start. In year 2003, the company launched Make Your Mark
program in partnership with the Prince’s Trust to assist unemployed people of 18 to 24 years.
Apart from this, the company setting up a wider industry collaboration, Movement to Work
whose aim is to administer youth employment opportunities. Since the launch of program, the
employers have developed over 90000 vocational training as well as work experience
opportunities for the young people. In year 2017, the company launched a pilot, named as "The
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10 Communities Programme" in order to test how company could make a huge impact on local
communities. It ran for 18 months and the learning from this program is being taken forward.
The company provide its employees with paid time off of one day for volunteering and run
employee volunteer awards. A volunteer week is organised by company for last 3 years in which
the colleagues are participate. Every year, an average 4000 to 5000 colleagues volunteer with
around 450 community organisations. Rapid changes are experiencing by retail industry of
United Kingdom currently.
The company actively work with its suppliers on supporting employees in supply chain on
programs involving financial literacy, leadership skills and health. The code of ethics and
behaviour in company set out policies and procedures which are relevant to community
engagement. The company support local charities through "In Touch with your Community"
model, without outlets making donations of 50 pounds to local charities, hospitals and schools.
CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS
As per the above mentioned report, it has been concluded that the community engagement
program of company is very effective in improving the health and wellbeing of people and
enabling them to live happier and healthier life. Apart from this, the company actively work in
partnership with other organisations towards improving the community engagement and takes
various initiatives which help in engaging the community and resolving the social issues
effectively and successfully. Although, various initiatives are taken by company, it is
recommended to the company that it should provide its employees with training and
development program which health implies in dealing with the sociocultural issues associated
with society in an effective way. Apart from this, it is also recommended to the company that in
order to improve community engagement and enhancing competitive advantage, the company
should encourage people to invest some of their time in volunteering and take efforts to improve
the lives of society.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Bowen, F., Newenham-Kahindi, A. and Herremans, I., 2010. When suits meet roots: The
antecedents and consequences of community engagement strategy. Journal of Business
Ethics, 95(2), pp.297-318.
Dempsey, S.E., 2010. Critiquing community engagement. Management Communication
Quarterly, 24(3), pp.359-390.
Head, B.W., 2007. Community engagement: participation on whose terms?. Australian Journal
of Political Science, 42(3), pp.441-454.
Sciulli, N., 2011. The views of managers from a local coastal council on sustainability reporting
issues. Qualitative Research in Accounting & Management.
Tsang, S., Welford, R. and Brown, M., 2009. Reporting on community investment. Corporate
Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, 16(3), pp.123-136.
Weerts, D.J. and Sandmann, L.R., 2010. Community engagement and boundary-spanning roles
at research universities. The Journal of higher education, 81(6), pp.632-657.
Weerts, D.J., 2014. State funding and the engaged university: Understanding community
engagement and state appropriations for higher education. The Review of Higher
Education, 38(1), pp.133-169.
Wray-Lake, L., Rote, W.M., Gupta, T., Godfrey, E. and Sirin, S., 2015. Examining correlates of
civic engagement among immigrant adolescents in the United States. Research in Human
Development, 12(1-2), pp.10-27.
Gray, J.A., 2015. Business, the Environment and the Consumer 1968-1992: The Case of Marks
and Spencer(Doctoral dissertation, University of Leeds).
Dessart, L., Veloutsou, C. and Morgan-Thomas, A., 2015. Consumer engagement in online
brand communities: a social media perspective. Journal of Product & Brand
Management.
Freear, J., 2015. Marks and Spencer and the social history of food c. 1950-1980, with particular
reference to the relationship between consumer behaviour and retailing strategies
(Doctoral dissertation, University of Leeds).
Online:
M&S ANNOUNCES MAJOR NEW COMMUNITY TRANSFORMATION PROGRAMME, 2017.
[Online]. Available through: <https://corporate.marksandspencer.com/media/press-
releases/2017/new-community-transformation-programme>
COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT, 2020. [Online]. Available through:
<https://corporate.marksandspencer.com/sustainability/community-
engagement#5f551b8aff164f79a6655fcfc7f0d4e1>
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