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Keeping both our customers and our people safe is our top priority so this news is particularly meaningful for us: we've received a Five Star grading in our British Safety Council’s Occupational Health and Safety Audit. During this audit process our management, employees and other stakeholders were interviewed to confidentially discuss aspects of occupational health and safety relevant to their roles and responsibilities. The auditor also assessed the effectiveness of these activities through an inspection of relevant sites and assessment of day-to-day operational activities. This result comes at a time where we continue to heavily invest in customer health and safety measures, with a new sprinkler installation programme currently being rolled out on one of our major estates.
One of our big goals last year was to build our brand as an inspiring place to work. We were proud to achieve a five-star Glassdoor rating just before the New Year⭐ 🎉
Our Christmas elves posted a special festive thank you pack to all employees for all their fantastic work in 2020. Despite a challenging year, everyone's adapted brilliantly to new ways of working whilst keeping our estates clean and safe and supporting our customers. Because giving back is extra important at this time of year, one of the gifts comes from Stand for Socks, who give a pair of socks to a homeless person for every pair bought (the most requested item by homeless shelters).
At the start of lockdown back in March we introduced Friday Connect: a series of weekly challenges designed to help employees connect with our purpose and each other. Over 100 people joined in with Friday Connect in its first month, and activities included Countdown, Name That Tune, an Easter egg hunt and a Back to School quiz. We still connect with each other once a month, and October's offering was frightfully good. Bingo is an RHP favourite, so this time we dressed for the occasion to give it a spooky twist! 🎃👻🦇
Our Black History Month celebrations finished on a high with a talk given to us by Roger Griffith - MBE. Roger, whoâs an inclusion and diversity thought leader, talked about topics including: the importance of representation, how all organsations can be more inclusive and the meaning behind historically problematic statues. Additionally, we had over 25 different conversations via our internal social media channels, Yammer. The conversations ranged from the power of language through to what key terms involving race mean. It was great to see how more and more employees from across the business felt empowered to get involved as the month went on. Our aim is to make sure weâre having conversations like this every month, not just during Black History month. We have lots of plans in the pipeline, led by our Inclusion Network and we look forward to sharing more details in the near future.
With the return of The Great British Bake Off in mind we decided to have a bake off of our own! And even better, we did it for our chosen charity The Vineyard Community Centre. Our very own Star Baker Sue (one of our Retirement Scheme Managers) led us through a virtual baking class with lemon cupcakes being the ‘showstopper’ of the day. As a result, we raised £360! We’re thrilled to share that since we named The Vineyard as our chosen charity back in November 2019 we’ve raised £2,300 for them in total.
Last Friday 17 July marked 20 years since RHP Group was born! To celebrate, we held a #ConnectedApart virtual roaring twenties party where we invited employees to dress in 1920s attire: we had Great Gastby-inspired tuxedos and flapper girls, speakeasy gangsters and plenty of Peaky Blinders! Everyone received a personalised party pack through the post, which included a bingo card to join our live game, sweet treats and materials for our 'design a birthday card' competition. Huge thanks to all our employees, past and present, who've helped make RHP what it is today. With ambitions to provide stellar customer service, homes to be proud of and a personalised employee experience in 2020/21, we're just getting started!
Because of recent events we weren't able to support our nominated local charity, The Vineyard Community Centre with their drop-in sessions like we'd planned, but we're chuffed to have found a way around that during lockdown with 5 in 5: our fundraising challenge. The rules were simple: choose an activity related to the number five, post a photo and nominate one other person to do the challenge. Our employees donated £5 to The Vineyard through their pay and RHP matched every donation. Distance didn't stop us from making a difference. We walked, cycled and ran 5k, ran up hills, knitted, did press-ups, yoga, meditated, played five instruments... and even recreated five famous pieces of art using things around the house! We raised £900 in total, which will help local people who are in greater need than ever after The Vineyard saw a massive drop in food donations and the complete loss of income from the shop and café.
Showing gratitude is a big part of our culture, because we know feeling appreciated can have a profound effect on how people feel about and do their jobs. For a number of years, our iamrhp employee awards have been integral in our approach to recognition. The categories are based on the things that matter most to us as a business, our customers and each other. And a global pandemic won't stop us from handing them out! So we rolled out the (virtual) red carpet for our spotlight awards ceremony, recognising nearly 40 employees who have gone above and beyond to live our values. As you can see, David Done OBE and the rest of our leadership team dressed for the occasion...
Throughout June we celebrated #PrideMonth 🌈 Our people often say that being able to bring their authentic selves to work is one of their favourite things about working at RHP and throughout the month we’ve been celebrating the values of inclusion and equality that Pride represents. As part of this, we asked everyone to ‘wear their pride to work’ by posting a rainbow selfie – here are just a few of the responses we got.
