As the charity for the furnishing industry, The Furniture Maker's Company has been supporting the welfare of people working in the trade since 1903. It helps furnishing industry people who are dealing with financial hardship by providing grants and useful advice.

Welfare officer, Sue Dean, is on hand waiting to support anyone in need and you can be the difference maker to someone’s life by helping spread the word about the charity at your place of business. Here, Sue provides five tips on how to be a welfare champion.

Display our charity poster and other collateral

This is the simplest way that you can make your co-workers aware of our charitable support. We have posters and discreet brochures that can be affixed to notice boards, displayed in the cafeteria or even pinned in bathrooms and toilet cubicles.

Tell HR about us

In the past, Human Resource departments have been great aids in communicating our message to employees at their company who they know to be struggling. We’re very keen to connect with as many HR professionals in the industry as possible, so please refer us to your HR department so we can make contact.

Share our content on social media

We regularly disseminate information about our grants on social media. You can help get more views on our content by liking and sharing what we publish. It is a simple action that can have a dramatic effect on the number of people who ultimately engage with the post.

Don’t be afraid to recommend us

Welfare is a tough subject to talk about but the only way we are going to change that is by addressing it head on. If one of your co-workers or contacts from the trade has disclosed that they’re going through hard times, don’t be afraid to let them know that we exist.

Let us know if a supplier or customer goes out of business

If a company that you have dealings with goes out of business, please take five minutes out of your day and let us know. We can then get on the case of contacting either the insolvency practitioner or someone from the HR department to explore how we reach the affected employees.

www.furnituremakers.org.uk/welfare