Race Equality Matters is excited to award the Bronze Trailblazer status to Home Group!

Home Group is one of the largest providers of high-quality housing and integrated housing, health and social care. They are determined to continue as a Social enterprise that moves towards impact and providing services that are greatly needed for those who require a home. They promote equality for all with EDI at the heart. Home Group have demonstrated a diverse use of effective initiatives informed by clear data to tackle racial inequality not only within their organisation but for important stakeholders including their service users. They have demonstrated empowering and inspiring action. Race Equality Matters’ independent panellists certified the need to highlight this. 100 % of panellists stated that Home Group is the type of organisation they would like to work for. 

Actions and Initiatives 

Implementation of a New Strategy 

Home Group focused on the implementation of a new strategy and becoming an example organisation in pursuing equality, diversity and inclusion. They ensured all 3200 managers and colleagues across the organisation were aware and responsible in supporting this initiative. The Board and executive team ensured this was all part of the strategy and set standards and goals to achieve an exemplar momentum that would support change. They sort to gain a National Equality Standard accreditation,  a review of  their Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Policy and set a zero-tolerance policy for racism across the organisation as well as publishing their ethnicity data to show progress and even further to encourage accountability. The approach is about moving from ‘say to do’ – more action and greater results.  

Alongside this Home Group invested in setting targets for leadership  and conducting mid manager framework sessions that again promoted accountability and empowered colleagues to work towards improving representation within leadership roles.  

Staff Networks 

Home group also showed an ardent dedication toward EDI and the creation of safe spaces for colleagues to express themselves through the multitude of Multicultural networks including ‘Hear Us/ Multicultural Exec Support Group, ’The Multicultural Closed Group (MCG), Multicultural Allies Workplace group and The Multicultural Action Panel (MAP) as well as the group wide EDI steering group. 

“Being part of the MCG provides support, opens discussions, enables safe feelings, to share experiences. Not feeling isolated knowing that experienced colleagues within the organisation of different working levels and roles understand and work with you to provide the knowledge, tools to positively challenge to make changes in the workplace for our MC colleagues.”  – Support Coordinator

Impact and Ethnically diverse Staff Endorsement

• Home Group now know 15% of colleagues identify as Multicultural, up from 11% in 2021. Their target is 15% with a target of 20% for 2025

• They measure their ethnicity pay gap and have seen an improvement from 2021 of 2.38% – it was 9.57% and in 2022 it was 7.19%.

• Their campaign to get colleagues to update their diversity data resulted in more colleagues sharing this. Currently, just over 3% of colleagues ‘Prefer not to say’ when updating their data in Oracle, which is a brilliant improvement on their 2021  8-15%.

• The Nashayman development Programme saw 60% of the colleagues that attended this development programme move on and progress in the organisation to date. (9 of 15 colleagues).

• They would like more diverse colleagues at senior levels in their organisation and when there is a vacancy, they use the ‘Rooney rule’ and check whether they are attracting, interviewing, and offering to diverse colleagues.

• They also measure  leadership representation – Board, Exec, SMT/BMT

• They have also seen changes in their recruitment for senior leader vacancies in 2022 and with three vacancies they offered positions to 2 female and 1 multicultural colleague.

Feedback from an Ethnically Diverse Panel 

Home Group  used numerical and testimonial evidence to  demonstrate their commitment and the sustainable impact of their initiatives. Some of this included: Lots of examples of lived experience being shared, changes in policy, refreshed strategy, development & mentoring programmes, multicultural events and multicultural cultural panels that informed tangible targets and KPI’s that were being achieved.

The judges consistently praised Home Group’s ‘commitment’  and ‘focus’ to inclusivity and creating a positive work culture. The judges described Home groups application as ‘excellent and an application that ‘Inspired them to take more steps and they truly felt incentivised.’ 

To achieve Trailblazer status, Home Group demonstrated that their action has created meaningful change and impact. One judge reflected upon the “wide impact” they have had internally.

Next Steps…

Moving forward, Home Group shared that they hope to continue to create change both internally and externally. The work is ongoing and part of their strategy and further action is to sustain the areas outlined above and in addition: look at their internal talent through a project called ‘Grow our own’ and they want their talent pipeline to get stronger for multicultural colleagues. Their KPI’s will move to the next level for the 2025 targets of 20% minimum multicultural representation. Inclusivity week/further training and development will continue. 

Home Group have demonstrated commitment and impact. Their Bronze Trailblazer status echoes the impact felt by the organisation’s Black, Asian and ethnically diverse employees.

Follow Home Groups Lead: Become a Trailblazer

If your organisation is driving change for Race Equality and you can demonstrate impact, endorsement from ethnically diverse colleagues and share future plans; register your interest for the next round of trailblazers on our website.