Member Article

Manchester’s The Connectives wins at national Women in Housing Awards

The Connectives, a consultancy based social business in Manchester, has scooped the Excellence in Career Development Model award for its Glass Forward mentoring programme at the national Women in Housing Awards 2014.

Held at the Hilton Hotel Manchester, the prestigious event saw 450 people from the UK housing industry come together to recognise and celebrate the women in housing who push boundaries to achieve and implement excellence.

Mags Porter – director at The Connectives and programme director for Glass Forward and founder and managing director of The Connectives- Liz Cross, were delighted to accept the award from Lulu OBE for Glass Forward, a programme they designed and delivered to encourage diversity in the housing association (HA) sector.

Working alongside Ian Gregg, who was chair of the Housing Diversity Network at the time of Glass Forward’s inception, The Connectives identified that while the housing association sector recognises the importance of diversity, there’s still too few women and BME leaders populating senior roles.

Like other sectors, the team knew there would be barriers and system constraints that impacted progression to senior roles, but that for many people, internal glass ceilings, doubt, perceptions and exposure to being and seeing oneself as a senior leader also constrained many from reaching director or chief executive level. It was agreed the Glass Forward mentoring programme would be the ideal vehicle to encourage and develop a more diverse group of senior leaders in the HA sector, as well as ensuring both mentors and mentees developed individually and collectively to support broader sector change.

Commenting on the award win and Glass Forward, Mags said: “So far, through Glass Forward, some 36 individuals have graduated or are currently being mentored by chief executives and senior leaders, empowering them to move up and onto new roles. More than half who’ve completed the programme have been promoted or made a change they wanted to make - with confidence and courage.”

Liz Cross said: “We’re delighted to be recognised for our experience in the housing association sector, our reputation for championing women in construction and for this proven programme that helps develop talent and remove glass ceilings.”

Penni Pennington, co-creator of the Women in Housing Awards said: “The judges commended The Connective and Glass Forward for helping to address internal and external glass ceilings. They were also impressed with the way they’ve helped women and BME employees to address challenges and develop the confidence, competencies, networks and techniques to take and create career opportunities.”

For further information about The Connectives visit www.theconnectives.com or call 0845 652 1300.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Paula Hunter .