Positive About Inclusion was commissioned by Housing 21 to undertake a review of the organisation’s approach to equity, diversity and inclusion (ED&I). The brief was to complete a comprehensive review of the organisation’s current position and to support their commitment through the identification of good practice, opportunities to replicate this and any potential barriers to be addressed. The project had a three-month timeframe.
Housing 21 is a leading not for profit provider of Retirement Living and Extra Care accommodation for older people of modest means. They operate in 215 local authority areas across England, managing over 24,000 Retirement Living and Extra Care properties and providing over 49,000 hours of social care each week.
We launched the project with an awareness raising session for colleagues, an online ‘Lunch, Listen and Learn’ webinar. This approach sent a powerful message about the authenticity of Housing 21’s commitment, fostering wide engagement and buy-in from the start and a recording was made available for those who couldn’t attend.
Following this session, we commenced the research elements:
• A Listening Exercise
• A Recruitment Diagnostic
• Desktop Research
Listening Exercise
To understand the enablers and potential barriers to embedding diversity and inclusion, we gathered colleagues’ voices, experiences, and opinions through court visits and an online appreciative inquiry exercise. Colleagues were invited to participate in an anonymous survey or a virtual one-on-one discussion, hosted independently by Positive About Inclusion.
Recruitment Diagnostic
We reviewed the end-to-end recruitment process, including:
• Job Description Analysis: Ensuring job descriptions encourage applications from a broad range of people.
• Advertising Review: Assessing where and how vacancies are advertised to attract diversity.
• Shortlisting Process and Criteria: Evaluating the accessibility and equity of these elements.
• Interview Assessment: Determining how candidate suitability is assessed during interviews.
• Bias Identification: Identifying whether systems and processes mitigate potential biases.
Desktop Research
We conducted a thorough desktop review to establish Housing 21’s current position, exploring key areas including:
• Diversity Data – analysing relevant colleague and resident demographic data.
• Relevant Policies – reviewing policies and procedures, including those related to complaints and hate crime.
• Online Presence – evaluating Housing 21’s website and social media channels.
Having carried out the research to establish the current position we collated our findings into a comprehensive report identifying strengths, areas for development and future recommendations. We then attended a joint meeting of the Board/Committee with members of the Senior Management Team to consider and explore the findings in more details and how these recommendations could be translated into prioritised action for Housing 21.
Having engaged with colleagues from the outset, it was important to share the outcome of the project with colleagues so that they could understand the results and see the benefit from their engagement. A final Lunch, Listen and Learn webinar was held during which colleagues were informed of the findings, recommendations and next steps.
Housing 21 hugely appreciated the work we undertook….
“Housing 21 worked with Positive About Inclusion to provide us with an objective view on our work in this field. They did an extremely thorough job analysing various aspects of the organisation, such as our website as our window to the world, our recruitment practices and our local schemes.
We found them to be extremely knowledgeable, professional and delivered the results to our Board in a positive, yet challenging, way to make our respect and inclusion work even stronger. They also presented back to our managers in an inciteful and humorous way which has motivated us to strengthen our operational approach to equity, diversity and inclusion, we will definitely engage with them further.”
Vanessa Pritchard-Wilkes, Head of Strategic Operations, Housing 21
