Building a truly inclusive culture

Mark Henderson, CEO, Home Group Ltd

 IWD 2021

As one the UK’s largest housing and care organisations, at Home Group we passionately believe that bringing different life experiences and backgrounds to work can only enhance what we do, and better reflects the communities and individuals that we exist to serve.

I am proud to say that 65% of my colleagues are women - but we have work to do to increase the percentage of women at senior leader level, which we are actively working towards.

We strive to share honest stories, to support and to develop our own talent and we particularly focus on under-represented groups, including launching a targeted development programme to support women into senior leadership roles. 32% of the delegates have now got a job more aligned to their career aspirations and/or promotion. We were pleased to have been voted 6th in the UK for a ‘Great Place for Women to work’ in 2020, and we want to improve on this too.

To make the best choices, we need to be informed. Whilst we may pride ourselves on calling out inequalities where we see them, what about where we know they exist but they go unseen? Or perhaps they are so ingrained in our societies that opportunities to challenge easily pass us by?

On International Women’s Day 2021, and on behalf of the leadership team at Home Group, I pledge to challenge ourselves to go further. Not just to challenge where we see it, but to seek out opportunities to openly challenge gender bias and inequality.

We have made an active choice to stay alert to the issues affecting women, to actively support our female colleagues to develop their own ambitions, and to set ambitious targets in not only recruiting women into roles they want, but supporting them to make work work for them.

We #ChoosetoChallenge.