1. Equality, Diversity & Inclusion at Salix Homes
Everyone at Salix Homes has a role to play in delivering our vision for equality, diversity, and inclusion and this is confirmed in our new Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion Policy and supported by our continued commitment to Inclusion as a core value and as a key competency area for everyone.
Our Board and our Governance and Remuneration Committee in particular play a crucial role in providing guidance, feedback and oversight of our collective activities relating to equality, diversity, and Inclusion.
In September 2021 our Board approved our Inclusion Strategy 21/24 which clearly sets out our ambitions and intentions to improve our approach to equality, diversity, and inclusion. This strategy supports us to continue to promote respect, acceptance and understanding through valuing difference and improving experiences for all.
To achieve our ambitions, this strategy focussed on the delivery of the following key strategic themes that in turn support the delivery of our Corporate Plan:
- Advance our culture of inclusion and innovation
- Enhance business results and reputation
- Supporting people and places achieve their potential
- Using our position to find housing solutions
In this report we will share our progress in how we are achieving our ambitions within each of these themes.
Advancing our culture of Inclusion and Innovation
To grow a diverse workforce, it is important that we create a culture of belonging. To better understand the experiences of our colleagues and what more we can do to enable them to be their authentic selves we have established our Inclusion Group. Each member has completed allyship training to support them to be effective in their role.
This group has listened to feedback and has delivered a number of colleague led initiatives including:
A celebration of important events to raise awareness of key issues and promote understanding. This has included colleagues sharing their culture as part of South Asian Heritage Month and provision of information to improve awareness.
A series of short videos through which colleagues share a personal story about their experiences to enhance understanding of the challenges they have faced in their lives and why inclusion is important.
The group has developed a new e-learning module, which improves upon our previous training, to provide a more reflective and solid foundation for all colleagues around equality, diversity and inclusion.
Introduction of a Menopause Policy and a menopause support group.
There is room for improvement in the data we hold about the makeup of our workforce. The group have run a campaign to improve the quality of the data we hold.
Other successes to advance our culture of inclusion include:
- Appointment of an Inclusion Partner to support our journey.
- Accreditation to the Disability Confident Scheme. A movement for change, which encourages employers to think differently about disability and take action in how they recruit, retain and develop talent.
- Participation in the Boost leadership programme: A reciprocal mentoring scheme which encourages people from minoritised ethnic backgrounds to work with leaders in housing organisations to share their experiences to improve organisational approaches to inclusion, whilst receiving support to personally progress in their careers.
- Delivery of financial wellbeing sessions: Recognising impact of the cost-of-living crisis on colleagues and organisations sessions to provide useful information and guidance.
- Delivery of unconscious bias training to our leadership team.
Enhance business results and reputation
There are, of course, legal requirements placed upon organisations with regards to equality, as well as a moral imperative to drive change. But there is also a well-recognised business case. Understanding and serving the needs of diverse customers is simply the way we all must operate to deliver effective and efficient services that get it right first time.
Key successes over the last 12 months under this theme include:
- Launch of a new approach to Equality Impact Assessments supported by training delivered to our leadership team which will help us to assesses key decisions and services offered.
- Engagement with the Plain English Campaign to support us to review our communications.
- Achievement of the crystal mark from Plain English for our new website and investment in new technologies to ensure our new website is more accessible.
- Customer Committee review of our performance against our new Customer Charter, promoting transparency in our delivery against promises made.
- Inclusion of diversity within our quarterly complaints report to help identify any potential barriers to services.
1. Equality, Diversity and Inclusion at Salix Homes
Everyone at Salix Homes has a role to play in delivering our vision for equality, diversity, and inclusion.
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2. Supporting people and places to achieve their potential
The pandemic exposed entrenched health and socio-economic inequalities and has disproportionally affected those on low incomes and the most deprived communities.
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3. Using our position to find housing solutions
Salford, our community, is one of the most deprived cities in the country, it is at the frontline of the housing crisis as it struggles with availability of housing and rising rents of private landlords.
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4. Composition of our colleagues and customers
Our commitment to diversity runs through everything we do.
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