Member Article

Together Housing Group committed to Equality & Diversity

Over 200 members of staff from Together Housing Group (THG) have attended bespoke training to raise awareness and understanding of the importance of Equality and Diversity in the workplace.

THG manages 37,000 homes across the North of England and comprises of seven companies including Chevin Housing Association, Green Vale Homes, Harewood Housing Society Limited, Housing Pendle, Newground Together, Pennine Housing 2000 and Twin Valley Homes.

Staff from the company’s repairs and environmental service teams attended the interactive sessions, which were delivered by award winning workplace training and consultancy company HearFirst.

The aim of the training helped to raise awareness of the different areas of equality and diversity and looked at how this could be embedded into the delivery of services. Delegates learned how equality and diversity links to successful outcomes and understand how this impacts on tenants.

Julie Ryder, Director and Founder of HearFirst, said: “Together Housing Group provides a housing service to over 50,000 people in some of the most diverse communities in the North. The Group demonstrates a strong commitment to, and understanding of, the importance of promoting diversity within its business. It is essential their equality and diversity training is real, meaningful and promotes a deeper understanding within their workforce.

“Those first to be trained first in equality and diversity were from both the trades and environmental services teams. Staff within these teams work on the front line and in many cases actually visit people’s homes. By helping the organisation to maintain its level of service to residents and minimise the time staff were away from the work place, we developed and delivered a series of unique and tailored ‘big group’ two-hour interactive sessions.

“Whilst the sessions were ‘hands on’, this helped staff to feel more positive and responsible towards equality and diversity and have a deeper understanding how THG is required to meet its obligations under the Equality Act.

“All of our training is facilitated by tutors who themselves have disabilities, which gave staff the opportunity to ask questions and develop their confidence resulting in a worthwhile and impactful learning experience.”

Catherine Proctor, Together Housing Group Head of Organisational Development Manager, added: “As a Group, we work hard to ensure our services are as fully inclusive and accessible as possible.

“We carry out E&D Briefings and Understanding Deafness sessions, so our work with HearFirst is invaluable to ensuring our staff, especially those who work in our neighbourhoods, are fully equipped to help all our customers.”

HearFirst has been working with various partners within the group since 2008 delivering deaf awareness training and is commissioned to deliver further deaf awareness training for front line facing staff later this year.

HearFirst provides a full range of equality & diversity training courses to organisations across the UK. For more information on Deaf, disability awareness and BSL training, please contact Julie at HearFirst on 01706 872 816 or visit www.hearfirst.org.uk

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