Remaining authentic while reimagining the future of work

While it may have been a new concept for some, for our organisation it was a model we were already exploring as part of our longer-term strategy and future operating model to support us with our digital and corporate social responsibility ambitions.

Carbon footprint

Next to the pandemic, the global climate crisis is perhaps the biggest challenge facing the world today and something we know our colleagues and customers care deeply about.

Last year, we’d undertaken a piece of work with the Institute for Public Policy Research to better understand how we can lead on decarbonising social homes. In addition to the homes we manage, prior to the pandemic we recognised that there were two other key contributors to our carbon footprint as a business: travelling and our offices.

“89% of our colleagues said they’d prefer to spend most of their time working from home”

Our annual carbon footprint across all our offices before reshaping the organisation equated to 123 tonnes. However, as we reimagine how we work long-term, we’re aiming to significantly reduce this figure too, which in the past year has already been reduced by 30%.

As it stands, the future of work for Stonewater will span homeworking, development schemes, co-working at community spaces and workspace hubs.

Values

We spend a lot of time and effort defining our mission and values as housing providers, and in times of crisis or change these messages must absolutely ring true. For us, these guiding principles have enabled us to be truly authentic in our decisions around how we’ve supported our colleagues and customers over the past year.

For example, a survey found that 89% of our colleagues said they’d prefer to spend most of their time working from home, but ensuring its success has required rethinking what additional support we need to provide in the long term.

Ensuring our colleagues are happy, healthy and comfortable – the literal definition of well-being – is not as easy to manage when you’re not sitting next to one another in an office, which is why we have invested in training programmes around emotional intelligence for our teams.

Similarly, we have given a lot of thought to the potential impact of hybrid working both on attracting and retaining talented people with additional needs, and also its impact on our gender pay gap.

“Ensuring our colleagues are happy, healthy and comfortable is not as easy to manage when you’re not sitting next to one another in an office, which is why we have invested in training programmes around emotional intelligence for our teams”

Our aim is that by having a predominantly homeworking approach we will in fact bring a greater work-life balance to our colleagues and get closer to our communities. When people have the flexibility to manage their day in a way suits them and their families, it closes the gap between ‘corporate’ and ‘customer’ and promotes people over process.

Creating opportunities

In our sector, whether it’s tackling the housing crisis or domestic abuse, we’re always looking for new and more forwarding-thinking approaches to address long-standing issues. Ensuring our colleagues have all that they need to help address these challenges includes considering how their work environment enables them to do a fantastic job.

For outsiders looking in, I genuinely believe how we’ve responded to the COVID-19 crisis and how we’re moving forward as an organisation is exactly what our people would expect, and that ultimately underlines our core authenticity as a business.

David Blower, executive director of corporate services, Stonewater