EMPLOYERS & INDUSTRY
If talent is your greatest asset, why isn’t creating jobs and skills one of your strategic priorities?
Most organisations already invest significantly in people, skills and communities.
Apprenticeships. Graduate programmes. Work experience. Volunteering. Social value commitments. Community investment. Employer partnerships. Often, each has grown for a good reason.
The problem isn't a lack of activity. It's that the activity doesn't always add up to a strategy.
Different teams may be responding to different pressures - workforce need, client expectations, procurement commitments, local priorities or corporate responsibility - without a clear line of sight between them.
That can leave organisations investing significant time, money and expertise without being clear about what they are collectively trying to change, where their contribution matters most, or what value that investment is creating for the business as well as society.
Real outcomes require that investment to work harder.
Kommon Ground helps employers connect business priorities, workforce need, client expectations, place and social impact, so investment in people and communities becomes more intentional, more distinctive and more valuable on both sides.
Our Services
STARTING POINTS, NOT PACKAGES
Every organisation starts somewhere different. Our propositions bring together some of the challenges we most often help solve, but they’re not fixed packages. We can work with you on a specific question or deliverable, bring independent perspective to an existing programme, or shape a broader piece of work around the outcome you’re trying to achieve. If your challenge doesn’t fit neatly into one of these areas, talk to us.
01 Skills and Social Impact Strategy
Look inside your organisation and bring the outside in, create a clearer line of sight between activity, investment, business priorities and what’s changing around you.
02 Place and Market Positioning
Connect into the skills and social impact infrastructure shaping your clients and markets, build relationships, relevance and reputation that support growth.
03 Impact that Leads
Look at the assets, expertise, relationships and influence your organisation already has and explore how they could be mobilised to solve a problem that matters.
YOU DON’T NEED TO UNDERSTAND THE WHOLE SKILLS SYSTEM.
You need someone who does - and can turn that complexity into clear choices about where to invest, why it matters and what will make the greatest difference to your business, clients and local community.
I’VE BEEN THE EMPLOYER IN THE ROOM
I've led skills strategy from inside a global business and understand the employer reality. Competing priorities, governance and workforce pressures all influence how organisations engage with social impact, helping me design approaches that work operationally as well as strategically.
I KNOW WHAT CLIENTS NEED TO SEE
I’ve worked across major infrastructure, client leadership, business development and bids. I understand how skills and social impact are scrutinised by clients and how to make your approach commercially relevant, credible, differentiated and deliverable.
I TURN BUSINESS CAPABILITY INTO SOCIAL INNOVATION
I help you look beyond conventional programmes to spot how your people, technology, expertise, or influence could be applied differently to a social problem. I've done this in practice, from turning professional expertise into an award-winning governance strategy, to using immersive technology to open up careers for SEND students.
I MAKE PARTNERSHIPS WORK HARDER
I’ve built, scaled and reshaped social partnerships, and walked away from those that no longer served the strategy. I help you decide who really needs to be around the table, what each relationship is there to achieve and whether the partnerships you already invest in are earning their place.
I TRANSLATE COMPLICATED POLICY INTO PRACTICE
There is an entire skills, employment and social-impact system operating around your organisation. I understand it. I'll help you work out which parts matter legislatively and commercially, where you're currently absent, and how to become meaningfully aware of that landscape.
I CONNECT IMPACT TO BUSINESS VALUE
I connect skills and social impact to clients, procurement, market position and growth so it becomes part of core business strategy, rather than a parallel programme championed by different (and sometimes) fragmented departments and passionate colleagues across the business..
The greatest value is created when those leading the work recognise the opportunity to drive economic growth while also helping the next generation secure their economic future. This is clear in Jess.
ELIZABETH ANDERSON
Chief Executive Officer, Digital Poverty Alliance
01 Skills and Social Impact Strategy
Do we have a clear line of sight across everything we're doing and what's changing around us?
Skills and social impact are fast becoming business-critical.
Public procurement is raising expectations. PPN 026 pushes further. Clients want outcomes, not just promises, and businesses are competing for future talent.
Yet, these things often sit apart: apprenticeships in one place, volunteering somewhere else, HR, bids, schools engagement, community partnerships, lots of activity. Not always a clear line of sight.
I help employers step back and see the whole picture, connecting workforce needs, commercial priorities, client expectations, and social impact into a strategy built around shared outcomes.
Because the strongest strategies don't choose between commercial value and social impact. They identify where the two reinforce each other.
HOW WE HELP
We create the strategic cohesion that's hard to see from inside.
We look across existing activity to understand what's happening, why, where responsibility sits, and how it connects or doesn't.
Then bring an outside-in view of policy, procurement, industry, skills, and place.
Together, that gives a clear baseline, what's strong, what's missing, what's duplicating, what's emerging, and what's getting in the way of greater impact.
From there, we help turn that perspective into clear priorities and a strategic direction grounded in what the business needs and where it can make a distinctive contribution.
TOGETHER WE'LL EXPLORE
WHAT ARE WE ACTUALLY TRYING TO ACHIEVE? — Is there a clear purpose connecting your investment in skills, employment, education and social impact?
DOES IT ADD UP? — Do your programmes, commitments and partnerships reinforce one another, or have they grown into a collection of disconnected activity?
WHERE DOES IT MATTER TO THE BUSINESS? — Where could skills and social impact contribute more strongly to workforce, clients, growth and wider business priorities?
WHAT'S CHANGING AROUND US? — Which shifts in policy, industry, procurement and place could materially change what you need to prioritise?
WHERE CAN WE MAKE A DISTINCTIVE CONTRIBUTION? — What should you protect, strengthen, rethink or stop — and where could your organisation create greater value?
02 Place and Market Positioning
Are we using our skills and social impact capability to strengthen our position in the markets where we want to grow?
Skills, employment, education, and social impact sit at the intersection of government priorities, client expectations, and place.
Around that is a growing infrastructure shaping what's happening next. From national government and sector skills bodies to the Careers and Enterprise Company, DWP, combined authorities, careers hubs, employer groups, and local partnerships.
Knowing it exists isn't enough. The commercial question is whether you're connected to the right parts and whether those relationships give you intelligence, influence, and opportunities to contribute.
National priorities play out differently across sectors and places. Workforce challenges create openings for employer leadership. Place-based partnerships can offer routes into relationships and insight that would be difficult to build on your own.
Understanding where those layers converge helps you see where to listen, where to participate, where to lead.
Done well, your skills and social impact capability becomes part of how you strengthen client relationships, demonstrate relevance, build reputation, and position for future work.
HOW WE HELP
We help you understand and connect into the skills and social impact infrastructure around your markets.
We map the national, sector, and place landscape, then overlay it with your relationships and pipeline to see where you're well connected, where relationships could work harder, and where important connections don't exist yet.
From there, we help you focus on the relationships that matter. Connecting into what's there, not creating more of it.
The aim isn't to be connected to everyone. It's to be connected to the right people in the right conversations around issues where your business has something valuable to contribute
TOGETHER WE’LL EXPLORE
WHERE ARE YOU HEADING? — Which clients, sectors and markets matter most to your future growth?
WHAT'S CHANGING AROUND THEM? — Where are national policy, sector priorities and place-based ambitions creating new expectations or opportunities around skills and social impact?
WHERE COULD YOU MATTER MORE? — Which challenges or ambitions genuinely need something your business is well placed to contribute?
WHAT DO YOU WANT TO BE KNOWN FOR? — Where could you build a distinctive and credible leadership position rather than simply participate?
WHAT WOULD COMMERCIAL VALUE LOOK LIKE? — Stronger client relationships? Earlier intelligence? Differentiation? Reputation? Pipeline? Work winning?
03 Impact that Leads
What could your organisation change if you started with the social problem, not the programme?
Stop assuming social impact needs another program.
Start with what the organisation has and what it can do.
You already have people, expertise, data, supply chains, clients, relationships, convening power, investment, and influence. So the question shifts. Instead of "what program could we create?" start with what problem is getting in the way of opportunity, why it's stuck, and what you could unlock that others can't?
Sometimes the answer is to scale what's already working. Sometimes it's applying your capabilities differently. Sometimes it's connecting people who don't normally work together. And sometimes it's using your influence to change the conditions that cause that cause the problem.
And there's commercial value in doing that well.
Differentiation, stronger client relationships, credibility, and leadership that others want to learn from. This is where social impact becomes stewardship.
Impact that leads.
HOW WE HELP
We help you use what's uniquely yours in new ways. Not to start another program, but to unlock something others can't.
That might mean applying a capability to a social challenge, connecting partners who don't usually work together, opening access you've got or shifting a condition that's holding a problem in place.
Together, we spot those non-obvious moves and shape them into something you can test, learn from, and build on.
TOGETHER WE'LL EXPLORE
WHAT ACTUALLY NEEDS TO CHANGE? — Are we addressing the underlying challenge, or repeatedly responding to its symptoms?
WHAT DO WE HAVE THAT OTHERS DON'T? — Where could your particular assets, expertise, relationships or influence unlock something different?
WHAT ALREADY EXISTS? — What should we strengthen, connect or scale rather than recreate?
WHO NEEDS TO SHAPE THE ANSWER? — Whose experience, expertise or agency needs to be part of designing what happens next?
WHAT WOULD LASTING CHANGE LOOK LIKE? — What would need to remain different after the programme, funding or intervention has ended?