Our vision and ambition
Diversity and inclusion is integral to our social purpose as a provider of homes and housing services, in building homes and communities, and as an employer and business partner of choice.
We know our actions have a massive impact on the wellbeing and life chances of our customers, therefore we are committed to ensuring our services are accessible and provide fair and equitable outcomes for all customers (and prospective customers).
We want to be an inclusive organisation by seeking to understand and address the diverse needs of all our customers and staff.
We know that nationally, people from Black, Asian and minority ethnic communities are more likely to experience poor housing conditions and services and that these racial disparities stem from historical and societal prejudice, racism and discrimination. We need to better understand any disparities within our own homes, the reasons for them and take steps to address them.
We value the diversity of both our customers and our staff and know that it brings significant benefits including creative and innovative advantage. Our culture and values are underpinned by the principle that ‘people are the difference’. We celebrate diversity and value the unique contribution that each individual can bring. We want our Board, Leadership Team and staff to be reflective of the diversity of our customers and the communities we serve.
Our core values were revised in 2024 to recognise the importance of Inclusion, Respect and Empathy. We want colleagues to feel comfortable to bring their whole self to work and customers to feel safe, listened to and respected.
Our journey so far
We are committed to being an inclusive organisation, seeking to understand and address the diverse needs of all our customers and staff. To reflect this ambition, we are proud to be a Disability Confident employer and have the We Invest in Wellbeing Silver award. We have achieved Housing Diversity Network and RACE Equality Code accreditation. We have made progress in the last few years, but we know we have a way to go on our diversity and inclusion journey.
As well as achieving the above-mentioned external accreditations, we have:
- Established an Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Taskforce
- Published an Anti-Racism statement
- Set out our ambitions and progress on a new EDI webpage
- Provided training and guidance in completing Equality Impact Assessments
- Worked with a specialist agency on recruitment for Board appointments, successfully increasing our diversity on our Boards and Committees
- Sponsored and participated in Medway Pride
- Raised awareness of EDI issues through Lunch & Learn sessions for staff on topics including neurodiversity, the menopause, unpaid carers, loneliness, dyslexia, young people’s mental health and diabetes
- Paid staff real living wage
- Launched a Customer Support Fund and supported over 500 customers struggling with the cost of living.
- Achieved a variety of benefits for our customers through social value in our procurement process
- Enabled staff Inclusive Champions and Mental Health First Aiders
- Held communications campaigns around various cultural and awareness raising events – e.g. Black History Month and violence against women and girls
- Committed to achieve the Domestic Abuse Housing Alliance (DAHA) accreditation.
- Included EDI targets within our Strategic Plan 2024/27
This is a great start, but we know there is still a lot to do.
Ambitions
Whilst we have made good progress, we recognise there is more to do to ensure Equality and Diversity is at the heart of our operations. This strategy will help us achieve this and meet the following ambitions:
- A clear, transparent, measurable and public commitment from mhs to improve diversity and ensure our service delivery and workplace are fair and inclusive
- An improved ability to measure current performance on equality, diversity and inclusion and progress towards transparent targets
- Embedded commitment and accountability for compliance with the Equality Act 2010 and EDI target delivery through changes to policies, procedures, role profiles and setting of individual targets
- A more aware and educated board, senior leadership team and workforce on what equality, diversity and inclusion means and how to improve our delivery of a fair and inclusive service to our customers
- A more informed, sensitive and effective approach to dealing with customer and staff EDI issues or situations with an EDI dimension such as ASB, hate crime and complaints
- An improved approach to encouraging staff progression for underrepresented groups within mhs
- More diverse representation in our board and staff teams
Timescales
The actions and intent in this strategy cover the period 2024-2027. We have a detailed action plan which sets out when we will deliver on each objective. This will be monitored by the EDI taskforce with progress reported to the Board quarterly and posted on our EDI webpage annually.
Areas of focus
Pivotal to the intentions in this strategy is our recognition and understanding of the concept of intersectionality.
Intersectionality acknowledges that as individuals we are shaped by multiple, interconnected identities and life experiences meaning that one ‘category’ doesn’t always fit and multiple identities can result in multiple advantage or disadvantage.
It is essential that we consider EDI through the lens of intersectionality as understanding the complexities of these multiple, overlapping identities ensures that we consider the impact of the unique challenges our customers face and creating a more caring, supportive and responsive service to our customers.
Within this lens of intersectionality, we have used the four themes contained in the Housing Diversity Network framework to structure our strategy: Strategy and Leadership, Workforce, Customer Impact and Community Impact. The ambitions outlined above are embedded within these four themes.
Effective leadership and a clear strategy are key in shaping our approach to Equality, Diversity & Inclusion. The Board and Leadership Team need to demonstrate a clear, transparent, measurable and public commitment to improve diversity and ensure our service delivery and workplace are fair and inclusive.
We want our Board and Leadership Team to be representative of our customers and communities.
We are working towards an improved ability to measure current performance on equality, diversity and inclusion and progress towards transparent targets.
We want to improve awareness and education of the board and Leadership Team on what equality, diversity and inclusion means and how to improve our delivery of a fair and inclusive service to our customers
Embedded commitment and accountability for compliance with the Equality Act 2010 and EDI target delivery.
We want EDI to be a consideration in all decisions taken by Board and Leadership Team and become embedded at the highest level of mhs homes.
We will do this by:
- Setting EDI targets which will be published and reported on our website and to our Board
- Reviewing EDI data against that of customers and communities to identify any areas of underrepresentation in our Board and Leadership Team
- Proactive and positive action in recruitment.
- Changing policies, procedures, role profiles and setting of individual targets.
- Ensuring that initial assessments and full Equality Impact Assessments are written for all relevant policies and approved by the EDI Taskforce.
- Monitoring progress against this strategy regularly
- Providing a programme of training for our Board and Leadership Team.
Fostering and encouraging a diverse workforce, where colleagues feel psychologically safe and comfortable to bring their whole selves to work enables a culture of belonging, acceptance and innovation. Colleagues permeate these values into policies, services and interactions with our customers.
We know that our workforce could be more representative of our customers and community. We want to address this to enhance understanding and responsiveness, increase trust and credibility amongst our customers.
We need to identify any underrepresented groups within teams and managerial levels and improve our approach to encouraging staff progression.
We want our staff to feel physically and psychologically safe at work and we will ensure that managers are skilled and confident in people management as well as processes are in place to ensure high standards regarding H&S and safety at work at all times.
We will do this by:
- Using data to set targets for recruitment from underrepresented groups.
- Implementing diverse and inclusive recruitment, talent management, and succession planning strategies so that there are clear career pathways for Black, Asian and minority ethnic employees and employees from other underrepresented groups.
- Using positive recruitment for our DLO to secure female operatives to ensure a balanced gender workplace and more choice for customers.
- Encouraging colleagues to share their sensitive data to improve our ability to target setting and monitoring.
- Engaging with our colleagues to understand their accessibility needs and preferences to ensure our L&D offer is accessible to all.
- Ensuring language used in role profiles is inclusive and any qualification requirements are essential to the role.
- Ensuring that managers are trained and confident to have sensitive discussions and provide support where necessary creating a psychologically safe environment for all #teammhs colleagues.
- Reviewing and strengthening our approach to dealing with incidents to staff, ensuring colleagues feel safe when carrying out their duties.
- Continuing to run communications campaigns and lunch and learn sessions on relevant topics.
- Continuing to use the results of the pulse surveys to measure whether colleagues feel safe to bring their whole selves to work.
- Provide a programme of training for all staff focused on understanding and responding to individual customer needs
- Identifying specific actions to tackle any Gender pay gap
- Extending our Ethnicity pay gap reporting and identifying specific actions to tackle any Ethnicity pay gap identified
- Starting annual reporting on the disability pay gap.
- Measuring the retention rate of employees from diverse backgrounds Versus the overall retention rate
- Measuring the promotion rate of employees from diverse backgrounds Versus the overall promotion rate
We are committed to ensuring our services are accessible and provide fair and equitable outcomes for all customers (and prospective customers).
We adopt a ‘zero tolerance’ approach to all forms of racism and hate crime (such as homophobia, antisemitism, Islamophobia) and will take action against all tenants where they or their family/visitors are found guilty of such an offence. We understand that customers can be subjected to incidents of hate which don’t necessarily qualify as a crime. We will take action against the perpetrators of such hate, ensuring that our customers can live in a safe and secure home.
We need to better understand any disparities of outcomes for Black, Asian and minority ethnic communities within our own homes, the reasons for them and take steps to address them.
We recognise that understanding and responding to the diverse needs of our customers will lead to a more inclusive approach to the service we offer.
We will do this by:
- Revising how we record customer’s individual needs and manage reasonable adjustments
- Developing an individual needs, vulnerabilities and reasonable adjustments policy
- Providing training that tackles unconscious bias and enables our staff to recognise and respond to the diverse needs of our customers.
- Improve our approach to ASB and Hate Crime/Hate Incidents through training and a targeted action plan
- Agreeing a Customer Engagement Strategy, with particular emphasis on those ‘silent’ underrepresented groups.
- Reviewing the EDI data of engaged customers against the EDI data of the wider customer base to identify if marginalised or under-represented groups are not being heard.
- Regularly analysing complaints and other aspects of service delivery and outcomes for customers against all protected characteristics to help identify if all our services are fair and equitable.
- Undertaking a Customer Segmentation review and implementing actions so that services are tailored to customers with different needs.
- Targeting home plan visits to those customers who we have not had recent contact with to identify any support needs that we may not be aware of.
As a provider of social housing, a significant purchaser of services, local partner and employer, we are aware of the influence we can have in the areas in which we operate beyond our own customer base.
We want to continue to have a positive impact in our communities that reflects our social purpose and is in line with our equality, diversity and inclusion ambitions.
We want to work in our communities to break down preconceptions and bias regarding social housing.
We will do this by:
- Using the leverage of our procurement process and work with contractors in social value benefits for our customers and communities.
- Working with local, regional and national partners on initiatives to tackle ASB and hate crime/incidents and support survivors of domestic abuse.
- Delivering 250 community days through the Day for Kent scheme.
- Supporting our Charity of the Year with staff fundraising efforts.
- Regularly comparing our staff and customer EDI data profiles with the communities we operate in to ensure we are an inclusive organisation.
- Increasing visibility in our local communities through multi agency working, attending community events and forums, supporting the work of partners and working closely with local councillors, statutory organisations, voluntary groups and community representatives.
- Continuing to engage with other local partners and stakeholders to ensure support to local initiatives, events, and charities.
- Promoting employment opportunities to customers using relevant community communication channels.
What does success look like?
A yearly action plan to deliver the ambitions of this strategy will be monitored by the EDI Taskforce quarterly. Ultimately, at the end of this strategy we will have delivered each of these outcomes in the four key themes:
1. Strategy and leadership
- We will have regularly monitored the action plan attached to this strategy.
- Retained Housing Diversity Network accreditation and continue to use the framework to drive forward our commitment to EDI.
- Reduce the number of leadership team colleagues saying ‘Prefer not to Say’ relating to religious beliefs and disability to 0%
- Achieved reaccreditation of the Race Equality Code quality mark.
- To address the gender imbalance of Board to 50%
- To address the age imbalance of Board, increasing the members in the 34-54 age bracket to 13%
- To address the gender imbalance of the Customer Scrutiny Panel (CSP) to 50% male/female
- Recruit at least 2 people of a non-white ethnicity onto the CSP
2. Workforce
- All #teammhs colleagues to have participated in mandatory training in unconscious bias and equality, diversity and inclusion, including mhs homes’ responsibilities under the Equality Act 2010
- Increase the recorded number of staff who have a disability from 2.5% to 10% by 2027
- Maintain our Disability Confident accreditation
- 90% of colleagues saying that they feel comfortable to bring their whole selves to work
- Reduce the number of people saying ‘Prefer not to Say’ in all protected characteristics to 10% of workforce
- Have maintained our Living Wage employer accreditation
- Keeping the Gender/Ethnicity/Disability pay gap to no more than 5%
- Have at least 5% of people of a non-white ethnicity working at management level
- Have at least 5% of people of a non-white ethnicity attending management development training
- As representation in all under-represented groups increases across the workforce, ensure their numbers attending management training also increase proportionately with this
3. Customer impact
- Have in place a Customer Engagement Strategy which ensures the views of hard-to-reach groups are heard.
- Have undertaken a Customer Segmentation review and implemented any actions coming from this.
- To have embedded Customer Centric service design principles so that services reflect the needs and priorities of customers with different needs.
- Increase customer satisfaction that we treat customers fairly and with respect to 92%
- To reduce those customers choosing prefer not to say to 10% in relation to ethnicity, sexuality and religious belief data
4. Community Impact
- Have in place a Communities Strategy.
- To have met, or exceeded, our target of delivering 250 days community volunteering through our Day for Kent scheme each year.
- Demonstrate involvement in community initiatives that promote EDI and inclusive communities.
- To have raised at least £20,000 for the mhs Charity of the Year through fundraising activities.
- To have achieved 4,000 credits in social value activities.
- Increase customer satisfaction that we make a positive contribution to neighbourhoods to 80%.
Customer impact
The EDI strategy directly impacts our customers by ensuring that individuals with diverse or underrepresented needs are considered at every stage of service delivery and decision making. Customers have been consulted when formulating this strategy.
Monitoring
The action plan that sits alongside this strategy will be reviewed by the EDITF every quarter. A full review will be undertaken each year and the results published in our annual accounts and on our website.