An organisation with its heart in the community ...
... and its soul on the web.
School's out
Women Like Us started as an enterprise by two women with time on their hands – time between school hours. Now they help other mums get back to work confidently with training, education, computer skills and the like, as well as providing the other half of the re-entry equation – access to employers who need those skills. The aim is to give everyone the choice to fit work around the needs of their family.
Growing pains
Its embryonic 5-person office in North London was soon outgrown. Even a new server and network in 2007 struggled to accommodate its rapid expansion to 20 staff, but more importantly, Women Like Us (WLU) knew it had to have a base across the river to reach its key clientele of South London work-seeking mums. With 5,000 women on their books last year, it exploded to 10,000 in 2009.
Jo Salen, PR manager says, "The problem was we were 'hitting a wall' in South London, and not looking like we were able to reach people there. We needed a base, a place where we could meet employers and show them we were South London experts every bit as much as we were North London experts. The need to move office became compelling."
Operation outreach
The first southerly steps were made with office space in a managed building in Southwark (and a welcome from Harriet Harman!), but 2008 was such a growth year that the building services were becoming something of a stranglehold, so they soon moved to Lavington Street, with a whole new office that has now become home to 25 or more peripatetic users.
Jo Salen, explains: "We have 45 people now, this time last year it was only 25. Five are full-time and the rest part-time; it's a complete mixture. With our hot-desking system, we can access all our systems from home as well as from the office to make it easier. We've got a database called Profile which contains all our employer database, contacts, all our women, all our coaching services, everything - all in one piece of software. That allows us to operate in such a flexible way, but also allows us to be an example of how flexible people can really work."
Technologies for flexibile working
Working together with Karen Mattison, director of outreach, Zorina Baksh of Co-Operative Systems has been involved in the IT project management since its inception and marks out some of the important insights:
"Women Like Us were ahead of the game in understanding the idea and versatility of the web database in facilitating the flexibility of their working culture. For us, understanding the scalability they needed to grow or contract at will, yet still stay within their culture of flexibility was paramount in proposing IT upgrades for WLU."
Throughout this 6-year progression, Co-Operative Systems have helped Women Like Us negotiate the path to implementing key technologies that give them such flexibility in the workplace, namely:
- a rock solid backbone of a network linking them to the North London office
- broadband stability that allows the group to access their crucial web database containing WLU contacts and services
- trials of Voice-over-IP to develop an Internet telephony system that actually works, keeping remote staff in touch, but at low call costs
- installation of Microsoft SharePoint server for document collaboration, that was intuitive enough for IT manager Poornima Kirloskar-Saini to continue developing herself
Looking forward and back
So what does the transition actually feel like?
"It's changed how people look at us," says Jo Salen. "We're renowned for being a business that started up over a kitchen table by two working mums. We grew very rapidly, but people still think of us as an organisation with its heart in the community - which we are. Now, with the aid of snazzy new offices, we can bring in anybody and impress them with who we are and what we're about - it helps to take us to the next level. We have gained 4 new contracts in South London, and are able to reach another thousand women in South London."
"We don't think of it as an office any more. It's a North London branch and a South London branch and it's become this hub for us. We've been able to do that because the technology's been in place."
Women Like Us brings women confidently back into the workplace after taking a break to raise a family. At all stages of their working lives, they help women find part-time or flexible work that uses their skills and talents.
womenlikeus.org.uk