OREANDA-NEWS. July 05, 2012. An Altrincham resident is taking time out of her job as an HR manager at Fujitsu this week for a 12-month secondment in the city of Salford, supporting a range of good causes in the local community.

Kelly Metcalf, who is originally from Preston, will become a “Business Connector”, charged with brokering relationships between local communities and big businesses in the area. The scheme is run by Business In The Community (BITC) but Kelly’s salary will be paid in full throughout the 12-month secondment by her employer, the technology giant Fujitsu. She was personally selected from a large number of applications by Fujitsu UK & Ireland’s CEO, Duncan Tait; and starts her training with BITC this week.

During the course of her secondment, Kelly aims to focus on employability projects, particularly among young disadvantaged people. This plays to her strengths in the field of human resources, and will contribute to tackling the issue of workless households in the North-West. Kelly has discovered that, while 15% of children nationwide live in workless households; in parts of Salford this figure is as high as 40%.

“It is such a privilege to be selected for the Business Connectors programme, with the full support of my company right up to the CEO. I want to use my time to help young people that haven’t had the same educational opportunities and family support that I had as a child and will be looking for suitable projects where I can use my HR expertise to make a real difference.”

In addition to financing Kelly’s placement, Fujitsu has created and provides the BITC Connect system, a cloud-based “Facebook-style” platform to help Business Connectors nationwide to share information and ease communication between the organisations involved in individual projects.

Last month, BITC announced a Ј4.8m investment from the Big Lottery Fund to support Business initiative, and aims to recruit and support over 670 Business Connectors nationwide over five years.

This week, Caroline Seldon, business manager for Fujitsu’s Defence and National Security division has also been seconded as a Business Connector, in Basingstoke.