We caught up with Jo Lake from Brighton-based charity Oasis Project to find out more about them and why they’ve joined the Brighton & Hove Living Wage campaign.
What does the Oasis Project do?
Oasis is an organisation giving hope to people affected by drugs and alcohol. We help women, children and families find the strength and opportunities to make choices that lead to change. Our services include 1-1 care co-ordination for women with drug/alcohol problems; group sessions and drop-ins; 1-1 therapy sessions for children and young people affected by substance misuse in families; a creche to enable our service users to access treatment; outreach work in the community with vulnerable, complex-needs clients; and a specific sex-workers outreach project. Oasis has over 22 years experience at delivering this varied kind of support in Brighton and increasingly across East Sussex.
Why have Oasis Project signed up to the Living Wage Campaign at this time?
Oasis is continuing to grow and develop as an organisation and it was felt that signing up to the Brighton and Hove Living Wage was an important step to take. We have a range of roles in the organisation and wanted to ensure that all our employees were receiving fair reward, particularly in the context of living and working in our City. Oasis values its employees and alongside salary payments offers a range of rewards and benefits including a well being hour and opportunities for learning and development.
Why do you think it’s important for organisations like yours to be a living wage employer?
Oasis offers a range of fantastic support to its clients and we want to make sure we are also offering exceptional support and recognition to the people that work for us. Being a Living Wage Employer means that this is transparent for our employees, our clients, our partner organisations to see.
Is it more important now during this pandemic to support employees?
During the pandemic our employees have been incredible, demonstrating resilience, creativity, flexibility and dedication to their roles. As an organisation we support our employees everyday, but it is even more crucial that we support them during this pandemic as we work in more dispersed ways with limited face to face contact. We have developed new ways for team communication and have continued to work safely but productively.
We want our staff to enjoy a better quality of life in Brighton and be rewarded fairly for the good work they do. We believe the Living Wage Campaign will help us with staff retention.
We want to attract and retain the best talent so that we can keep on delivering best in class eCommerce marketing and we believe in rewarding talent at every level and making sure our people feel valued. That's why we pay all our staff and contractors at rates well above the living wage, from our…
We are proud to be committed to the Living Wage Campaign, paying a fair wage in an area with such a high cost of living. Our small team work extremely hard to alleviate food poverty for the community's most vulnerable which must be exchanged for a sustainable salary.
Paying the living wage helps our employees with the higher costs that are associated with living in Brighton. It also keeps them happy, content and more motivated which is also a benefit to our business and of course being client facing, to our customers too.
I want the best people locally to stay loyal to Account Management Now.
