​Scene and Context

Frontline recruitment has become one of the hardest problems for large employers. Customer-facing roles demand patience, emotional control, and reliability, yet turnover is high and training pipelines are fragile.

Managers report the same pattern. Candidates start, struggle, and leave. The cost is not just financial. Service quality drops, pressure shifts to remaining staff, and trust erodes.

At the same time, thousands of people who want to work remain excluded from hiring processes because they lack stable housing. The two problems are rarely discussed together.

Standing Tall exists precisely at that intersection.

Formation: Seeing What Others Missed

Christy Acton did not arrive at this work through policy or theory. Before founding Standing Tall, he ran a night shelter in Birmingham.

What struck him was not disengagement, but readiness.

“Half the people there wanted to work,” he said. “But no one would give them a chance.”

The barrier was structural rather than personal. Without an address, applications stalled. Without income, housing remained out of reach. Christy described it bluntly: “No job, no home. No home, no job.”

What changed his thinking was what happened when that loop was broken. When someone secured work, the effect was immediate. “They’d come in at the end of that day transformed,” he said. “You could see the physical difference of this person feeling valued again.”

Where Employers Started Paying Attention

Standing Tall places people into specific roles where pressure is unavoidable. One of the clearest examples Christy returned to was customer service work at major railway stations.

These are not forgiving environments. Delays, complaints, and public frustration are routine. According to Christy, station managers noticed something unexpected about recruits who had come through homelessness.

“When someone comes into the station angry or not in a great state of mind,” he said, “our candidate is able to relate to them and help.”

The explanation was not technical skill. It was judgment. “They’ve been through some difficult times,” he said. “They have that emotional intelligence.”

For employers, this mattered. “If they’re trying to find staff who are going to stay with them for the long term,” Christy said, “they’re getting it from Standing Tall.”

Not Charity, Performance

Christy is careful about motivation. He does not present inclusive recruitment as an act of goodwill.

“The primary decider for them is that they need good staff,” he said. “And we’re finding them.”

Standing Tall’s model is deliberately narrow. Employers start with one role, one hire. Each person enters work alongside secure housing and twelve months of ongoing support. That stability reduces early drop-out, one of the most expensive failures in frontline recruitment.

Christy described what often follows. “They go, wow, this is really working,” he said. “And then our partnership grows from there.”

The social impact is real, but it follows operational success rather than leading it.

The Limits of the Argument

Christy avoids sweeping claims. Hardship does not automatically produce good employees. Standing Tall only works with people who are ready and motivated.

Nor does he argue that hiring alone can address homelessness. Housing supply and living costs remain structural pressures well beyond any employer’s reach.

What he does argue is specific. When recruitment relies too heavily on conventional signals, employers exclude people who are well suited to the hardest parts of the job.

“Hiring changes who is inside the organisation,” he said. “That’s harder than volunteering. But it’s where the real impact is.”

Closing Reflection

Standing Tall’s work reframes inclusion as a question of judgment rather than virtue.

In frontline roles, where emotional control and resilience matter more than polish, experience can outperform credentials. For employers facing chronic shortages, the most reliable staff may be those who fought hardest to re-enter work.

This is not a story about charity. It is about what happens when businesses widen their definition of capability and judge success by who stays, not who looks right on paper.