With more than 9,000 commercial tenants across our business parks, and in recognition of the close to 150 communities in which we work across Germany and the UK, Sirius and BizSpace have an important role to play in driving positive social impact.
PRISMA
We launched PRISMA in FY2021/22, a programme aimed at recruiting refugees who have settled in Germany, providing training, development and job opportunities within Sirius in order to enable access to a wider range of specialist jobs. The programme was piloted within our head office in Berlin, and the next step is to roll out the programme across our German portfolio, and to seek opportunities to collaborate with our tenants to provide access to further job opportunities. In addition to job training, candidates also access subsidised German language lessons and mentoring from existing Sirius employees. The aim of the programme is for 5-10% of staff based at the Berlin head office to be made up of former refugees.
Internship and apprenticeship support programme
In addition, we are working on two additional programmes which we believe can make a difference. The first is a local internship and apprenticeship support programme in which we will provide career development opportunities to local talent. We are currently working to structure the programme and its aims and will launch the programme during FY2023/24.
Supporting local businesses
We are also committed to launching a programme to support local businesses which can demonstrate a strong social purpose through the availability of favourable terms in rental agreements. We are currently exploring the rent pricing strategy and will update our stakeholders in due course. We intend to launch the programme during FY2023/24.
Charitable giving and community engagement
We actively engage in charitable initiatives, supporting colleague fundraising activities and encouraging volunteering and community work through paid time off. BizSpace employees can each take one full working day per year for community work. Noting the positive employee engagement, and seeing an opportunity to align the businesses, Sirius launched a similar scheme for employees in Germany to take half a day annually or donate this time to colleagues keen to volunteer more regularly. During FY2022/23, our German colleagues achieved 581 hours of charity work, over the 480-hour target that was set.