Member Article

Salix Homes recognised for Covid-response communications

Salford housing association Salix Homes is in the running for a prestigious award in recognition of its Covid-response communications.

Salix Homes, which employs over 300 people, has been shortlisted in the Best Covid Response category in the Institute of Internal Communications Awards (IoIC).

The social housing provider launched a series of innovative internal communications campaigns for its workforce throughout the pandemic, designed to boost morale, improve health and wellbeing and keep teams together while staying apart.

James Allan, marketing and brand manager at Salix Homes, said: “We employ a diverse workforce comprising a real mix of roles from our desk-based back-office teams, customer-facing frontline officers and hands-on repairs and maintenance operatives out and about in our communities delivering critical services.

“Throughout the pandemic, our workforce has pulled together to continue to deliver housing services for our tenants and communities when faced with the most challenging of circumstances, and never has internal communications been more important than during Covid-times.

“With the sudden closure of our offices, separation of close-knit teams and a question mark over life as we know it; it was essential we found new and innovative ways to keep colleagues informed, boost morale and empower our people to work better together, whilst staying apart, so to be recognised for what we achieved is a real honour.”

Central to the internal communications at Salix Homes was the #SalixTogether campaign – an initiative designed to keep colleagues informed, engaged and connected with the organisation and each other during these challenging times.

As part of the campaign, employees took part in the Salix Mega Marathon – a virtual marathon challenge where teams had to collectively walk 262 miles to help raise money for Salford Foodbank and in total clocked up a staggering 2,445 miles - the same distance as walking from Salford to Florence in Italy and back again.

The winners of the IoIC Awards will be announced at an awards ceremony in September.

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