The organisation

Great Places Housing Group owns and manages over 25,000 homes across Greater Manchester, Lancashire, Cheshire and South Yorkshire. We are a Registered Social Landlord and accordingly 87% of these homes are for those in housing need and are offered on a social or affordable rent. Through its Plumlife brand, Great Places also offers affordable home ownership solutions, via options such as Shared Ownership and Rent to Buy, as well as homes for outright sale. Great Places is an award winning house builder and is a strategic partner of Homes England. With funding of £240.8m Great Places will develop a further 4,920 grant-funded homes across the North of England by 2028 to help mitigate the Housing crisis. Most recently Great Places has been the lead partner in Housing First, the Mayor of Greater Manchester initiative to tackle rough sleeping.

As an employer, Great Places employs over 1,000 colleagues across the North West. With offices in Didsbury, Blackpool, Oldham and Sheffield colleagues undertake roles including surveying, Clerk of Works, Project Managers, Housing Officers, Support & Wellbeing Officers, Sales Advisors, Customer Contact Officers, Employability Coaches, Tenancy Coaches, Fire Safety Officers, Gas Managers, Electricians, Plumbers, Joiners, Caretakers and Grounds Maintenance operatives. At our Head Office, there are roles to support key operational areas in Human Resources, Finance, Communications, Data & Business Intelligence,  IT and Technology.

The rationale for action

Living our values of ‘We Care’ and ‘We Appreciate the efforts of everyone who works for us’ 

Working in housing is not about bricks and mortar, it is about people; the people who live in our homes.  Over the last ten years with the introduction of austerity we have seen many services such as Sure Start and many community based charities disappear. This has come at a time when our tenants and residents have been dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic and the Cost of Living crisis. Both of these have disproportionately impacted on our tenants and residents and the communities in which they live.

We are an organisation with a purpose beyond profit. We care about our tenants and their families and our people are focussed on giving them the best quality homes and services to allow them to flourish. As an Employer we role model this behaviour by caring about our colleagues and appreciating their efforts in delivering our organisational purpose. We work to make sure we respect the ‘moments that matter’ for them in their lives as partners, parents, siblings and family members by enabling them to be present and being there for them with great support during difficult times. This has meant reviewing and enhancing our Family Friendly Policies.  

Sector specific issues

Our customer facing colleagues support our customers through very difficult situations. We often describe ourselves as the ‘4th emergency service’ often being the first on the scene when there are issues such as poor mental health, addiction, domestic violence, anti-social behaviour, child neglect, child sexual exploitation and bereavement. In Housing First we work with people who are rough sleepers and the associated mental health issues connected to having no home and no safety or security. In our Independent & Wellbeing services we house vulnerable customers such as those with poor mental health and addiction challenges as well as those that are older, disabled or seeking asylum.

We were particularly mindful that our Property Services Directorate, which has a large Repairs and Maintenance function, is primarily made up of male colleagues. These colleagues are based out in our communities working in customer’s homes and spend lots of time in their vans alone. This gives them little opportunity to interact with other colleagues and talk about issues that may be affecting them.

What we did

Great Places made a positive decision to provide family friendly support and wellbeing. We thought carefully about the challenges of work life balance and how we could support colleagues to be at their best both at work and at home.

We reviewed our Family Friendly Policies and considered the situations our colleagues had experienced over the last few years and how we could have provided better support. Within this we held workshops for our parents, particularly our newest parents. We talked to them about what we had done well and what we could have done better. From these sessions we introduced some new support measures including:

• Becoming an accredited Family Friendly Employer with Bump2babybeyond: this gives our colleagues access to a variety of pre-recorded webinars and lunchtime support courses covering topics including pregnancy, parenting, infertility, bereavement and more.

• Introduced three weeks fully paid Paternity Leave from day one of employment for new fathers.

• Introduced three weeks fully paid leave for Kinship care; this is where a colleague unexpectedly has to care for a relative. We have had this on three occasions over the last few years where colleagues have had to assume care for nieces/nephews or grandchildren at very short notice due to the medical incapability or family breakdown

• Introduced fully paid Neonatal Care, which gives up to 12 weeks full pay to parents whose newly born child needs hospital care

• Two days paid Grandparent Leave; to assist in care for a new child to the family

• Introduced a Mental Health Assessment into Risk Assessments for pregnant colleagues: such risk assessments help us recognise where pre-existing mental health challenges exist, which may mean additional support is required during maternity leave

• Introduced Mentors/Coaches for those returning from Maternity Leave: to help settle new mums and birthing people back into the workplace

• Wellbeing Packs in all the Vans for Repairs Colleagues: these give details of all our wellbeing support offers, with contact details

• Mental Health First Aiders: We are training 10% of our workforce in Mental Health First Aid and have introduced an Active Listeners Scheme (watch on YouTube)

• TRiM: We have trained 41 practitioners and 11 managers, including our Health and Safety team in peer to peer mentoring support, following a traumatic situation at work or at home

• Introduced Access to an accredited Counsellor and behavioural, CBT and emotionally focussed Therapist who can help with Abuse, Anger management, Anxiety, Autism spectrum, Bereavement, Cancer, Chronic fatigue syndrome / ME, Depression, Disability, Identity issues, Loss, Obsessions, OCD, Personal development, Phobias, Post-traumatic stress, Pregnancy related issues, Relationships, Self esteem, Self-harm, Sexuality, Stress, Trauma and work related issues.

• Introduced Wagestream which allows colleagues to bring forward monies from their wages and access affordable loans, underpinned by accessible and engaging financial education to improve financial wellbeing.

Impact so far

We have received very positive feedback from colleagues so far. The workshop with new parents was very impactful; colleagues were appreciative of the opportunity to talk about their experience as new parents and gave feedback that they were pleased they were being consulted and listened to.

We have also heard many individual stories of the impact of these changes we have made; one of our male colleagues who had been with us for only four months cried as he realised he would have the opportunity to spend three weeks paid time with his family when his new baby arrived.

The addition of the trained counsellor to our support package has been really impactful. Here is one text message we received following a consultation – “Just finished my session, I feel so good. Thank you for sorting it out for me, I no I needed help and today proved this. Never cried, laughed and cried more in my adult life ha ha. So again from the bottom of this frail, but on the mend heart, thank you for caring and looking after me for the last 6 months when I have needed it”.