STRATEGIC REPORT
Our people and culture
Our colleagues have continued to respond to the challenges we’ve faced with great resolve and commitment, embracing our renewed focus on prioritising key issues as we do everything we can to cultivate a high performance culture and improve the services our customers receive.
WATCH Highlights from the Living Our Values Awards ceremony, held in Nottingham in October 2023.
Our colleagues have continued to respond to the challenges we’ve faced with great resolve and commitment, embracing our renewed focus on prioritising key issues as we do everything we can to cultivate a high performance culture and improve the services our customers receive.
WATCH Highlights from the Living Our Values Awards ceremony, held in Nottingham in October 2023.
In the last 12 months, we’ve launched a new people strategy, which includes an enhanced focus on attracting and retaining great people, managing performance and encouraging personal development.
We’re placing greater importance on promoting the benefits our colleagues receive and taking the time to listen to and act upon their feedback about what we can do together to improve our organisation. A lot of progress has been made and we were delighted to retain a one star accreditation after carrying out the Best Companies ‘B-Heard’ staff engagement survey.
The progress we’ve made this year has only been possible thanks to the dedication of our colleagues who’ve stayed true to our vision and absolutely lived our values. To celebrate, we held our second ever Living our Values Awards ceremony in November, which was attended by over 100 colleagues.
We want to ensure Longhurst Group is a great place to work where people can develop their skills and feel supported.
In recognition of the remarkable achievements of individuals from across the Group in each of our five values, we handed out certificates and trophies, and took the time to hear more about how our colleagues made a positive difference to people’s lives. We want to ensure Longhurst Group is a great place to work where our people can develop their skills and their resilience and feel supported in terms of career progression and their wellbeing. We’re fostering an environment that enables our colleagues to give their best every single day while fully understanding and embracing our vision, our values and our purpose.
In the last 12 months, we’ve launched a new people strategy, which includes an enhanced focus on attracting and retaining great people, managing performance and encouraging personal development. We’re placing greater importance on promoting the benefits our colleagues receive and taking the time to listen to and act upon their feedback about what we can do together to improve our organisation. A lot of progress has been made and we were delighted to retain a one star accreditation after carrying out the Best Companies ‘B-Heard’ staff engagement survey.
The progress we’ve made this year has only been possible thanks to the dedication of our colleagues who’ve stayed true to our vision and absolutely lived our values.
We want to ensure Longhurst Group is a great place to work where people can develop their skills and feel supported.
To celebrate, we held our second ever Living our Values Awards ceremony in November, which was attended by over 100 colleagues. In recognition of the remarkable achievements of individuals from across the Group in each of our five values, we handed out certificates and trophies, and took the time to hear more about how our colleagues made a positive difference to people’s lives.
We want to ensure Longhurst Group is a great place to work where our people can develop their skills and their resilience and feel supported in terms of career progression and their wellbeing.
We’re fostering an environment that enables our colleagues to give their best every single day while fully understanding and embracing our vision, our values and our purpose.
Our 5 for 25 focus
In April, we launched a new initiative called 5 for 25, which saw the organisation identify and set out five key programmes of work to focus on up until March 2025 that will help us get back to basics and reset our foundations for future success. Our priority has been to do everything we can to clear the backlog of repairs, complaints and empty properties, as our performance in these areas has had the biggest impact on our customers and our colleagues. This led well into our second and third priorities, which were colleague and customer, as we knew we needed to put our people and those that rely on us the most at the forefront of what we do. The main aim of the colleague theme was to make Longhurst Group a great place to work, where everyone is committed to our purpose and has the knowledge, skills and support to deliver high performance and great customer service. Our fourth priority was to improve the way we operate and the way we work, being more efficient with the right processes and systems in place, with our fifth and final aim being to ensure we retain our focus on the future and ensuring the organisation can meet its growth ambitions.
ABOVE We’ve launched our 5 for 25 initiative to help us get back on track.
Since the launch of the programme, which has featured a range of in person and online briefing sessions to encourage colleague engagement and collaboration, we’ve seen significant progress and moved closer to a business as usual approach to dealing with repairs, complaints and empty properties, while also taking clear steps to improve customer and colleague experience. We’ve also enjoyed excellent progress when it comes to delivering and handing over new, affordable homes and investing in our existing homes to make them more sustainable and more energy efficient for our customers.
Our 5 for 25 focus
In April, we launched a new initiative called 5 for 25, which saw the organisation identify and set out five key programmes of work to focus on up until March 2025 that will help us get back to basics and reset our foundations for future success. Our priority has been to do everything we can to clear the backlog of repairs, complaints and empty properties, as our performance in these areas has had the biggest impact on our customers and our colleagues. This led well into our second and third priorities, which were colleague and customer, as we knew we needed to put our people and those that rely on us the most at the forefront of what we do. The main aim of the colleague theme was to make Longhurst Group a great place to work, where everyone is committed to our purpose and has the knowledge, skills and support to deliver high performance and great customer service.
ABOVE We’ve launched our 5 for 25 initiative to help us get back on track.
Our fourth priority was to improve the way we operate and the way we work, being more efficient with the right processes and systems in place, with our fifth and final aim being to ensure we retain our focus on the future and ensuring the organisation can meet its growth ambitions.
Since the launch of the programme, which has featured a range of in person and online briefing sessions to encourage colleague engagement and collaboration, we’ve seen significant progress and moved closer to a business as usual approach to dealing with repairs, complaints and empty properties, while also taking clear steps to improve customer and colleague experience.
We’ve also enjoyed excellent progress when it comes to delivering and handing over new, affordable homes and investing in our existing homes to make them more sustainable and more energy efficient for our customers.
Retaining one star accreditation
In November we completed the Best Companies ‘B-Heard’ engagement survey and retained a one star rating, which defines the Group as a ‘very good’ organisation to work for. With all the challenges the organisation, our customers and our colleagues have faced in recent years, we felt it was crucial to carry out this survey to find out what’s working well and what needs to improve. Retaining a one star rating in the context of these issues is something we can be proud of, alongside excellent engagement with the survey, which saw 76 percent of colleagues have their say and represented a five percent increase from our last Best Companies response rate in October 2021. There were other reasons to be positive with scoring around ‘my team’ and ‘my manager’ being particularly high and increasing since our last survey, which indicates that colleagues highly value the teams they work in and the support and guidance they receive from their line manager.
We also saw improved perception in terms of ‘wellbeing’, which increased by two percent and ‘fair deal’, which was up by one percent.
ABOVE We’re creating an environment that engages colleagues and improves services for customers.
We also fare favourably with other one star organisations when it comes to ‘my manager’, ‘personal growth’ and ‘fair deal’.
The areas with lower scores, compared to our last survey, were ‘leadership’, ‘my company’ and ‘giving something back’. We’re focusing on improving these areas with our colleagues ahead of the next survey.
Retaining one star accreditation
In November we completed the Best Companies ‘B-Heard’ engagement survey and retained a one star rating, which defines the Group as a ‘very good’ organisation to work for. With all the challenges the organisation, our customers and our colleagues have faced in recent years, we felt it was crucial to carry out this survey to find out what’s working well and what needs to improve. Retaining a one star rating in the context of these issues is something we can be proud of, alongside excellent engagement with the survey, which saw 76 percent of colleagues have their say and represented a five percent increase from our last Best Companies response rate in October 2021.
ABOVE We’re creating an environment that engages colleagues and improves services for customers.
There were other reasons to be positive with scoring around ‘my team’ and ‘my manager’ being particularly high and increasing since our last survey, which indicates that colleagues highly value the teams they work in and the support and guidance they receive from their line manager. We also saw improved perception in terms of ‘wellbeing’, which increased by two percent and ‘fair deal’, which was up by one percent. We also fare favourably with other one star organisations when it comes to ‘my manager’, ‘personal growth’ and ‘fair deal’.The areas with lower scores, compared to our last survey, were ‘leadership’, ‘my company’ and ‘giving something back’. We’re focusing on improving these areas with our colleagues ahead of the next survey.