Placements with a Purpose launched in 2016 as the brainchild of Keith Banks, President and his brother Jason Banks, EVP of LLoyd Staffing. The Melville-based company celebrates a milestone anniversary this year – 45 years of bringing together talent and employers – and has a long history of community outreach. Most recently, LLoyd was the recipient of the Corporate Citizenship Award from Long Island Business News for encouraging volunteerism and employee participation in causes promoting social responsibility.
“The business has always been socially involved with an emphasis on charitable efforts” said Keith Banks, 48, “We decided we wanted to have a direct connection to a cause that mattered to us personally and to focus on one cause in a bigger way than to make smaller contributions across a broad range of platforms.” The Banks brothers chose the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF) to be the benefit of their new program, Placements with a Purpose, which will make donations to JDRF for each hire the firm makes with a client company and for each temporary associate billed out on a client assignment. “Diabetes touched us directly” says Jason Banks, 44. “Our mother, great grandmother and close family friends have all had to manage the life of a diabetic. It always remained private and within our family as a kind of silent disease. When we lost our mother in 2012 to a sickness that was complicated by diabetes, we suddenly realized how great her battle had always been and how she fought it every day with a smile and without fuss.”
LLoyd is Long Island’s oldest privately owned staffing firm, established in 1971. The company places talent nationwide at all levels from entry level to C-suite executives and also provides contingent talent to organizations that augment their workforces through flexible labor such as temporary associates, IT contractors and other interim talent.
“People want to work with companies that make social responsibility part of their mission. I think our job candidates and our corporate clients will be pleased to know that when they do business with us, we are helping to do something good with their investment in our services.”
Keith Banks
LLoyd includes employee wellness as part of its value system. Employees receive paid time off for wellness checkups and preventative testing and in past years issued pedometers to staff members to encourage walking for better fitness. “As a company, we intend to participate in the JDRF ONE WALK in the fall, says Keith Banks. “For National Diabetes Awareness month we will be offering screenings and education to employees and clients.”
Marie Cimaglia, Executive Director of the Long Island JDRF adds, “This is an extraordinary opportunity for JDRF to be chosen as the beneficiary of LLoyd Staffing’s, Placements with a Purpose program. Millions of people around the world live with type 1 diabetes (T1D), a life-threatening autoimmune disease that strikes both children and adults. There is no way to prevent it, and at present, no cure. We are thrilled to be collaborating with a company focused on making a difference in the community by addressing the needs of people living with T1D and we look forward to furthering our partnership as the LLoyd Staffing Family walks with us at our JDRF OneWalk in October.”
JDRF is the only global diabetes foundation with a strategic plan to end type 1 diabetes (T1D.) As many as 3 million Americans have type 1 diabetes. Approximately 15,000 children and 15,000 adults are diagnosed each year. JDRF collaborates with a wide spectrum of partners and is the only organization with the scientific resources, regulatory influence, and a working plan to better treat, prevent, and eventually cure T1D.
“Good health makes a stronger workforce,” says Jason Banks, “not just physically, but emotionally. As we work with clients to help address their hiring challenges we always delve into their company culture. Wellness drives engagement and that impacts productivity and morale.”
LLoyd, now in its second generation of leadership, has five future leaders, ages 8 to 18 looming on the horizon. Keith Banks adds, “We know JDRF is the right cause for this pilot program. It means something to us and it represents the promise of a longer life and reduced health battles for the next generation of workers.”