ForHousing

🏆 For the past few years, we've celebrated the incredible work happening in our ForHousing communities with the Be Proud Awards. From outstanding groups to inspiring young people and dedicated tenants, this year we've seen even more amazing nominations. Want to know who's taking home the Super Staff or Greatest Group award? Stay tuned! We'll be announcing the winners soon. How does your organisation foster community spirit? Share your stories below! #BeProud #Community

Wellbeing Walks take place every week around Chester, Ellesmere Port, Winsford, Northwich, Malpas, Tattenhall, Frodsham, Helsby, Elton & Ince, Neston. To find your closest walk visit: http://cwac.co/exwxk

Interested in finding out more about working at ForHousing? Take a look at our video which gives an overview of our inclusive and agile culture and explains why we’re such a great place to work. Check out our Careers page to see what jobs are currently open: https://bit.ly/3SoMzcx

We had a fabulous #NationalCustomerServiceWeek at the beginning of October and we hope you did too! Our colleagues were praising their team mates on Viva Engage and sending plenty of e-cards. Senior Managers also took part in a range of shadowing opportunities to meet some teams from across the wider organisation. Jamie, our Executive Director of Customer Experience Repairs and Maintenance, was able to get out and about to our partners at Liberty to celebrate colleagues with excellent customer service: “I had the most awesome day thanking the 20 people from across Liberty who have had the most compliments from our tenants and customers, or the highest satisfaction scores, or had been nominated by ForHousing colleagues for just being amazing. As they were working in our customers’ homes across the patch that meant we went to them!” We want to keep the conversation about great customer service and recognising #CustomerServiceHeroes going all year round! What’s the best way an organisation can celebrate customer service wins?

As Black History Month comes to an end, we want to reflect on all the amazing work that has happened. In the last month, our Race Inclusion Network have created daily activities for colleagues to get involved with. So far colleagues have engaged with over 24 posts, polls and quizzes with more planned for the last week. One of the members said, “It’s been great to work on and support all the activities that have been created. I think it has had a great impact as so many people have been getting involved and learning new things. It’s important that we are always learning and growing”. We are proud to represent a diverse, inclusive workplace where everyone can thrive. To find out more about who we are click here: https://bit.ly/3ygUaEG.

Last week we held our Staff Forum! This group of colleagues meets monthly, with a guest from our Executive Management team. This month we hosted Michael Parkin, Chief Executive Officer, who gave us an update on performance, key priorities and areas of focus. We had some great questions and discussions following his update. We also heard from members of our other colleague networks and committees, including our Race Inclusion Network who have been key in driving our upcoming Pathways to Grow: Career and Networking event. This event will bring together different areas and departments to share knowledge and skills on key projects, as well as help break down barriers to internal progression and development. We are grateful to have colleagues who will speak up and challenge us to do better as an organisation and we can already see the positive outcomes from listening to their voices! Our Staff Forum involves colleagues from a range of departments at ForHousing, both customer facing and customer support, and from all levels of the organisation. It’s great to get a regular chance to hear from everyone, in a space where all questions and ideas get an equal voice and consideration. To find out more about working at ForHousing, visit our website: https://bit.ly/3SGovCI

We had a fabulous #NationalCustomerServiceWeek at the beginning of October and we hope you did too! Our colleagues were praising their team mates on Viva Engage and sending plenty of e-cards. Senior Managers also took part in a range of shadowing opportunities to meet some teams from across the wider organisation. Nichola, our Director of People, spent some time with Lianne, one of our Asset Management Surveyors: “I joined Lianne on her planned visits to our tenants homes; dealing with follow up calls, and in one case a post inspection. A great insight into the daily job and all the variables that go with it. Lianne you were great company, so cheerful and helpful with all the tenants and Thank you for your time and answering 100 questions.”

We’ve now published our Gender Pay Gap report and Ethnicity Pay Gap report on our website: https://bit.ly/3JlS5ID At a glance... Our mean gender pay gap is now 9.75% (on average, for every £1 a male colleague earns, a female colleague earns 90p) – We have closed the gap by 6.9% since 2023 and hope to continue that trend. Our ethnicity pay gap is 16.3%, (on average, for every £1 a white colleague earns, an ethnically minoritised colleague earns 83.7p) – Although we have closed this gap by 0.78%, we know there is a lot more we can do. Moving forward, we are committed to addressing under-representation of ethnically minoritised and female colleagues, especially in senior roles across the organisation. Our pay gap action plans have been developed with support and input from our colleague networks such as the Staff Forum, Race Inclusion Network, EDI Excellence Group and Access Network. We want to be recognised as an equitable employer with a diverse workforce, and we will do that by continuing to hold ourselves accountable and always working with our colleagues to find areas we can improve.

As Black History Month continues, there are still many great events happening all over Manchester. Many of these events are free and suitable for all different ages. If you’re looking for something to attend over the next few weeks, have a look at the link below. https://bit.ly/3YrVGxP

Pleased to be part of today’s TPAS National Scrutiny Conference, sharing our RAISE IT approach which has increased the number of tenants involved in scrutiny of our services. We’ll be covering the key changes we’ve made, how scrutiny exercises have been triggered and the benefits and lessons we’ve learned along the way. You can find out more about RAISE IT here: