Creating social impact in the workplace

This years event, hosted in Sydney and Melbourne, provided our customers with inspiration and practical insight on ways we can drive positive social outcomes. Both events featured a panel of Lendlease’s social impact partners and were facilitated by keynote speaker, Prof. Stan Grant, with a specific focus on placemaking and fostering community, responsible procurement and design and operation of facilities.

Top left: Rob Caslick, Founder of Two Good Co;Tara Anderson, CEO of Social Traders; Prof. Stan Grant; Alice Drew, Head of Place Futures, Lendlease; andCorey Grech, Director of Foods and Kitchens at Native Foodways
 
The discussions centred on how organisations can positively contribute to society and the communities we operate in through the spaces in which we work. This is an important focus for many of our tenant partners, and an increasing expectation for stakeholders – from employees to customers, shareholders, and communities.

For Lendlease, creating positive social impact has long been important and ingrained in our ethos from the start – where delivering positive social and environmental impacts alongside economic outcomes is an approach we stand by – of which workplace precincts play a huge role.   
Through these places and working alongside our partners, our aim is to make a positive impact on people’s lives – whether that’s improving quality of life and productivity, supporting health and wellbeing, providing economic opportunities or improving the local environment.

Lendlease also has a long and proud history of supporting First Nations’ recognition and reconciliation. We’ve had a Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP) for over 12 years and are currently one of only 13 companies in Australia with an Elevate RAP.

Titled Country, Truth and Our Shared Story, our Elevate RAP reinforces our commitment to delivering Country Centred Design and First Nations place-making by incorporation of First Nations thinking and reflecting stories of place in the built form, landscape design, procurement processes, partnerships and relationships that will benefit Country and community.  

We’re also committed to using our reach to influence stakeholders to contribute to the national reconciliation conversation and deliver social value to First Nations communities.  

The Lendlease workplace platform will soon be launching its first social impact grant round in October, open to support social business who drive economic prosperity and opportunity in our cities. These grants help us deliver social value, in partnership with our tenant customers, in the neighbourhoods we work and operate in.

In conversation
Q&A with Carolyn Boyce and Alice Drew, Lendlease, and Prof. Stan Grant

How do you embed change within the workplace? What does it look like on the floor with people that you work with in a practical way?

Alice Drew: There are many things that we are able to do, and I think firstly it’s about being able to have really bold, direct conversations with people and challenge each other to think in different ways and do things better.

I know I’ve had a lot of conversations about a range of amazing things that we’re working on together. We need to look at not just the places we’re creating, but also the programs that we’re overlaying with that, who we’re partnering with our collaborations. We always look first, not just the place, but we seek to understand the culture of every organisation that we work with, and every team that we work with, and the people that we’re engaging with. Because if you can get the cultural engagement, there’s so much more that we can do together.

What role does Lendlease play in bringing about the change that’s necessary. It’s a fine line between being a responsible social citizen and showing leadership, but not allowing yourself to be captured by politics. So how do you walk that line?

Carolyn Boyce: It is a very tricky line, but one that Lendlease walks boldly. It’s really about having those tough, deep conversations. 

If you consider the referendum last year, I was just really proud on a completely personal level as a Lendlease employee, to be able to attend sessions where we got to hear a lot of truth telling really, some of which were uncomfortable conversations, but ones that we really needed to have. That’s something that spreads to a lot of other issues that we face in society. We’re fortunate that we get to have the conversations, but we’re also privileged to be able to shine a light on these issues.

How do you prepare a space where people can bring what are often very confronting truths, contested truths, and build that place of respect so that they can be heard?

Carolyn Boyce: We work both internally and externally with a lot of our customers to really understand what is driving their people, why they actually work for a business and what drives them in and outside of their work life.

As part of that, we have some really profound conversations at times. Those conversations themselves, whether they be workshops, interviews or surveys, help us gather a lot of information that we’re then able to communicate with their leaders, to really be able to explain what people are caring about, what’s impacting them in and outside of work, and how that can possibly be something that you can bring into the workplace and use as something to propel them forward in the actual business. So it’s not easy. It’s a lot of conversations. It’s a lot of investment in leadership as well. 

We hear a lot about things like procurement and creating those opportunities and those relationships with particularly First Nations groups. But how do you build the relationship to support the business? What are the opening points for that?

Alice Drew: I think one of the incredible opportunities about working at Lendlease is the opportunity. I know for a lot of my colleagues as well, the opportunity to be able to use our purchasing power to amplify the amazing things that other organisations are able to do, and when we make good choices about who it is that we work with, the ripple effect of that can be incredibly powerful.

We are in the business of making places, but that’s actually a people business. So creating a place is about creating something that has this amazing soft power to influence how people behave, the choices that they make. A place speaks to what your values are without actually saying a single word.

So when we have the power to make a choice, to put something incredible into it that is a social enterprise, or that gives back to people, or that has some greater influence on someone’s way of thinking, or the way that they’re going to behave that day, I think that’s an immense privilege.

And it’s not just Lendlease being able to connect with these social enterprises and provide those connections and business opportunities. We also have the power to work with other large organisations, which are our tenant customers, to amplify these social enterprises to them as well and to their people.

When we continue to do that, we open a space for these conversations. And the more we do this, the more we change how openly we talk about these things, the better we all become.