Hello Student®

A Different Perspective Podcast is available now! 🔔 Listen to our CEO Duncan Garrood talking about how his career transitioned from studying a PhD in chemistry to the corporate and property world. Going through different roles in customer goods and entertainment focused companies, Duncan has played a key role in a wide range of tasks from production to sales and marketing management, contributing to expand the operations, re-brand, and oversee transformations. Ensuring that “business is all about people” Duncan explains ESP – Hello Student’s focus on getting our team members and customers actively involved in community work as a key part of our business strategy and offer. "We run social events where we bring the community together, we do community work together, which is particularly important for international students as they want to feel some British culture. We spend a lot of time making sure they integrate together […] This is probably when the greatest friendships of your life are formed."  Available on Apple Podcasts and Spotify: https://lnkd.in/eMX5WTPz https://lnkd.in/e2p3Ev-D

We host a diverse workforce where women have equal opportunities, feel heard, valued and respected. In support of International Women's Day today, we're celebrating all of our wonderful female talent across Empiric Student Property plc and Hello Student. 2025’s theme is: Accelerate Action. Below is one of our team members, Gaynor Gildea offering her view on how we can accelerate action towards gender equality within business and how we're helping to nurture female career development. We're also sharing further resources, initiatives and events internally that underpin this theme. As a business, we've implemented a broad strategy to encompass various processes and areas to enhance gender equality. This ranges from flexible working and maternity/paternity policies, to internal promotions and development programmes as well as our recruitment process. For example, in the last year, we have: 🌟 Launched our Hello Future Stars programme, an internal development programme to support progression across the organisation. The first cohort includes 10 Customer Service Advisors (70% females) aiming to progress to a Deputy Multisite Manager or equivalent role. 🌟 Seen 19 team members complete our first externally verified ILM Level 3 in Leadership & Management (59% were females). Celebrating this day is not only about acknowledging our past achievements but shining a light on how we're continuing to shape, develop and maintain an equitable and inclusive future. We're excited to be delivering more initiatives this year and beyond, as we strive to be a great place to work. #InternationalWomensDay #Diversity #GenderEquality

As we enter the start of the Muslim holy month, Ramadan - a time of abstinence, worship, contemplation, and community - we wish a blessed, "Ramadan Kareem" to all those observing. To mark this special time, we have shared information to enhance awareness of the occasion across our business along with tips on how to support team members and students observing this celebration, helping create a more inclusive and considerate environment. As giving to the community is an important part of Ramadan, we are also encouraging donations to our corporate charity Stop.Breathe.Think.   #Supportive #Inclusive #OneTeam

As we mark Random Acts of Kindness Day, we wanted to celebrate all the supportive efforts of our teams in helping local communities and charities. Last year, we: 🌟 Encouraged all our team members to take a day a year to give back to their local communities. Activities included: litter picking, hospice, food bank and charity shop support and wrapping donated children’s gifts, among many more! 🌟 Helped 62 communities and charities  🌟 Completed 344 days of support We're continuing this initiative in 2025 and beyond. You can read more about our work here:    #ESG #Charity #Supportive

We're wishing all of our Chinese customers a Happy New Year! At Hello Student, this is a big occasion for us as we decorate our buildings and have fun celebrating with traditional food, themed music and friends. Our Chinese team members have done a fantastic job preparing and sharing guidance and tips on a range of cultural traditions for this event enabling our sites to create authentic, memorable experiences across our cities.   As we mark the Year of the Snake, symbolizing reflection, growth and personal transformation, we can't wait to see what this year brings for our wonderful student customers. Enjoy the festivities!   #StudentAccommodation #ChineseNewYear #Fun

In support of International Clean Energy Day, we're reflecting on some of our achievements so far in making our buildings more sustainable. We intend to become net zero in our operations by 2033, with a wider target of being net zero in all emissions no later than 2050.   In the first half of 2024 alone, we: 🌟 Installed over 2,000 smart panel heaters, providing more efficient energy consumption across our portfolio 🌟 Improved the coverage of properties rated EPC B or better to over 60% 🌟 Increased our decarbonised portfolio further, to 25% by area. By the end of 2025, over 40% of our portfolio by floor area is targeted to be fossil fuel-free We also launched two well-received Energy Saving campaigns over the year to drive greater awareness of the importance of energy savings among internal teams and customers in a fun and engaging way. This involved step count competitions, energy superheroes and villains (designed by our students), hints and tips stickers, engaging table displays, training videos and internal webinars.    We're excited to build on our progress this year and beyond, as we strive closer towards our target.   #PBSA #ESG #CleanEnergy #Sustainability

We believe in Happy Monday, not Blue Monday. That's why we've encouraged our team members to 'say thanks' today and recognise others they work with by sharing ecards and photos expressing their gratitude. It just takes seconds and can make someone's day! We've also promoted various wellbeing resources and motivating tips to support and inspire our teams as they kickstart the new year!    #OneTeam #Supportive #HelloESPnobluemonday

As 2024 draws to a close, we wanted to celebrate our fantastic achievements this year. Here are just some of our biggest highlights: ✨ Four industry awards won  ✨ Three site refurbishments completed offering premium living experiences to our customers ✨ Two successful energy saving campaigns launched in support of our ESG targets ✨ Over 6,000 rooms turned around over the Summer with all our new students welcomed and settled into their new homes ✨ 62 local communities and charities supported by our team members and further fund raising campaigns completed for our corporate charity, Stop.Breathe.Think. ✨ Two new team member development programmes launched supporting internal skills development and career progression ✨ And we secured over £56 million from our investors to continue to grow our business and roll out our PostGrad by Hello Student brand across more cities. We couldn't do all this without our wonderful, dedicated team members supporting and collaborating as One Team - a massive thank you to everyone. Here's to 2025 and achieving more growth!   #StudentAccommodation #PBSA #OneTeam #Growth

We are donning our most festive outfits across our teams today as we celebrate and have fun in the run up to Christmas, while raising money for our corporate charity, Stop.Breathe.Think.!     Which is your favourite?   #OneTeam #Charity #Supportive #Fun

To support our ESG targets, we recently powered up to launch our exciting Student Energy Saving Week campaign across our cities and sites driven by Michael Barrett and a cross-functional collaborative team. This involved lots of fun activity to raise awareness around the importance of saving energy and making a positive impact on the planet. It included a step count competition with prizes, our energy superheroes and villains (designed by our students), hints and tips stickers, engaging table displays and training videos as well as handing out delicious, branded cookies on launch day for those who stopped by the stands. Students were also encouraged to share their energy saving tips and stories on their socials to support the campaign. Our aim is to reduce average energy consumption per bed. Initiatives like this help to drive positive change towards this target in a fun way, as we strive to make memorable experiences for our customers. #NRGsaver #ESG #Fun #StudentAccommodation #Collaborative