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Our people
We are transforming
our work culture and
the way our business
is organised so that
we can adapt to our
changing markets
and achieve our
vision.
The important changes we initiated in the previous
year gained real momentum in 2014/15.
Customers and people at the heart
As a values-led business we are proud to have
a workforce of 3,000* who are committed to
our mission to enhance life chances. We have
now completed our ‘Customers and People at
the Heart’ brand values training with all our
colleagues. These brand values are shaping
our three-year change programme to
transform the way we operate, deliver
consistently excellent services to our
customers and improve value for money
across the organisation.
We are strengthening and streamlining our
leadership team and creating a scalable and
agile team. So that we are more responsive to
customer needs, our management structure
is being simplified and we are introducing
greater accountability and ownership by our
leaders. For example our Neighbourhood
Teams maintain local relationships and
ensure that our services reflect the needs
of the community they serve. We have
introduced a Director of Customer
Experience who has overall responsibility
for maintaining and driving consistency
of our customers’ experience.
Circle Housing provides people with
rewarding long-term career opportunities.
We are ensuring our colleagues have the right
skills and that we recruit the best talent to
grow the business. To help this we have made
our recruitment process simpler, created more
apprenticeship opportunities and offer more
professional development qualifications to
our colleagues than ever before.
We moved 100 colleagues to new offices
at King’s Cross, London and are closing two
offices. This reduced the fixed space we use
and will provide savings of over £600,000
a year. The new site offers a flexible meeting
and event space which is better suited to our
modern working practices.
In June 2015 we completed the rollout of agile
working which has been very successful.
Agile staff can now work at a location most
appropriate to their job role. It has made our
workforce more productive and increased
the time we can spend with our customers,
improving communication and staff
satisfaction. We were finalists in Business
in the Community’s Opportunity Now top
100 employers for women because of the
successful impact that changing to work
in an agile way has had on our workforce.
Diversity and Inclusion
Our leading approach to Diversity and
Inclusion (D&I) has gained considerable
recognition in the last year. D&I is integrated
into our business practices and almost 10%
of our workforce is either a D&I champion
or a member of one of our five networks.
D&I forms a key part of our employer brand
strategy. It is important as it enables us to
recruit and retain talent more easily as well
as helping to ensure our workforce reflects
our customers so that their voice is heard.
* of which 2,476 are contractually employed by
Circle Anglia Limited
4 Circle Housing Annual Report and Accounts 2015
www.circlegroup.org.uk