Our people promise

We all have a personal responsibility to challenge discrimination and promote equality, diversity and inclusion.

At Progress, we are determined to ensure people are treated fairly and respected as fellow human beings. Many things are wrong in our society, but we are committed to ensuring we contribute to making it a fairer place for all.

Our employment offer is an important part of that commitment, and we are working hard to be better at creating opportunities for all. Our role as a social housing provider is to champion the right for everyone to have a decent home and to be supported so every individual can reach their potential. These principles are demonstrated in our values and how we work with tenants, customers and colleagues daily. Our offer is genuine; we truly want to improve the lives of our tenants and customers and create new opportunities for all. 

Jacqui De-Rose, Chief Executive

We aim to be an inclusive organisation where diversity is valued, respected and built upon, with an ability to recruit and retain a diverse workforce and board of management that reflects the communities we serve. Our Equality Diversity Inclusion Strategy sets out our EDI objectives.  

Customer Voice - We are committed to placing tenants at the heart of everything we do,.learning from our tenants and ensuring that our activities have a positive impact on people and communities. In 2024/25 we hosted 337 events with 5,276 attendees, including 1,647 attendances at independent living events and activities.

These events included social gatherings, training sessions, community events, Community Chats, consultations, and tenant-led reviews.

We are committed to supporting and enhancing our communities by supporting local charities and voluntary and community groups.

In 2024/25, we supported 43 community projects with £88,322 invested in delivering a wide range of projects, including youth projects, a winter warmer campaign and community gardens - all designed to support community health and wellbeing.

Our Progress Futures service continues to provide a free, personalised service supporting tenants and their families to access employment, education, volunteering, and training.

Our Brighter Futures initiative offers six-month paid work placements for tenants, funded by our Community Investment Fund.

In 2024/25, four tenants completed placements, gaining skills and valuable exposure to real working environments, and a further three tenants started new placements within our housing operations and tenancy sustainability teams.

Three tenants who previously completed placements through Brighter Futures have secured permanent or fixed-term roles within Progress Housing Group this year.

We continued our successful partnership with DFN Project SEARCH, Runshaw College and Lancashire County Council for the fourth consecutive year. This supported internship programme provides young autistic adults and young adults with a learning disability to develop both technical and employability skills through real work placements and individualised support.

This year we welcomed seven interns across various departments, including IT, Property Services, and administration. Several participants progressed into further training or secured employment.

This programme continues to be a key part of our commitment to inclusivity, equality and social value.

We are committed to enabling a sense of belonging to ensure our working environment reflects our equality, diversity and inclusion objectives. Our values and culture are vital to supporting this.

Our behaviours are how we positively demonstrate our values in action and influence our colleagues to do the same.

As well as committing to our social purpose, we ask colleagues to live our values in everything they do.

In 2024/25, we created and embedded with colleagues, our RAMP customer service style. RAMP is a unique framework that supports our organisation's values and core behaviours. It guides the way we interact with both our internal and external customers and deliver an excellent customer experience.

RAMP is embedded in our culture and is an expression of our existing values and behaviours.

RAMP stands for: Resolve issues, Adapt our service, Make it easy and Proactive.

We are committed to valuing diversity, ensuring equality of opportunity, and recruiting and promoting based on merit and contribution.

We want to attract the best talent and recognise that placing diversity and inclusion at the heart of what we do will help us achieve this aim. We value and celebrate the qualities, background, perspectives and lived experiences that every individual can bring to a role.

An environment where people are treated fairly, based on their capability and contribution, and everyone is encouraged to be themselves and be supported in their career aspirations.

Training, support and development opportunities for people living with different abilities/challenges.

We monitor training to ensure that all employees receive equality of opportunity and, where appropriate, we provide colleagues training facilities to enable growth, development and accessibility to compete or qualify for positions within Progress Housing Group.

We offer flexible and hybrid working patterns to ensure work-life balance.

We offer apprenticeships opportunities for new recruits and existing employees. Apprenticeships are a great way for the Group to ensure we are training our employees with the specific skills to meet the increasingly diverse needs of our services.

We take our responsibility to develop the skills of young people seriously, and our apprenticeship programme is always popular.

We have committed to work towards Harry's Pledge, which includes making offices and community spaces we offer as accessible as possible, installing ‘Changing Place’ toilets in any new offices open to the public, and being a carer-friendly employer.

As a Level 2 Disability Confident Employer, we are proud to support inclusive practices that challenge stigma and promote positive change. This status reflects our ability to foster a workplace that is supportive of mental health and disability inclusion, helping to break down barriers and lead the way in changing attitudes for the better.

Our Contract Management Framework has been developed to aid in the implementation of a Contract Management Standard across all Group business areas.

It will ensure we are proactive, compliant, efficient and effective in the management of the performance of our contracts and that desired outcomes and intended benefits are delivered over the term of any one agreement.

The Framework follows an four-stage lifecycle plan, each dealing with a specific area in procuring and delivering goods and services and providing guidance and support for contract management processes.

The Group supports events and key dates to celebrate and raise awareness of diversity throughout the year. Colleagues are encouraged to share lived experiences and differing understandings of the world through our internal communications channels.

We also have several employee-led networks:

• Pride in Progress
• Roots
• Carers Together
• Meno Movers

As part of our commitment to help eradicate mental health discrimination, we have trained volunteer mental health first aiders and Wellbeing Champions.

As part of our commitment to help eradicate mental health discrimination, we have trained volunteer mental health first aiders and Wellbeing Champions who are a point of contact for colleagues experiencing a mental health issue or emotional distress.

We hold a monthly information session for our supported living tenants, looking at different areas of their home and tenancy. These sessions provide information in an interactive and easy-to-understand way. 

Areas covered by this group have included:

• repairs and maintenance
• white goods and furniture
• garden volunteers
• health and safety

Throughout 2024/25, we were proud to continue our sponsorship of Typhoons RUFC, Lancashire’s first inclusive rugby club.

We are a founder supporter of Stop Social Housing Stigma, a national tenant-led campaign challenging the stereotype around social housing.

For 2024/25, we are proud to be one of 12 ‘pioneering travellers’ to support Stop Social Housing Stigma on its journey towards tackling negative stereotypes of social housing tenants.

We continue to actively support the campaign, promoting the value and benefit our tenants and customers bring to our communities.

Our communications are inclusive and accessible, reflecting our colleagues' diversity or origin, identity, thinking and lived experience.

We are committed to ensuring information for our tenants is accessible to all. This includes:

• Offering BSL interpreting services via SignLive
• Access to Language Line
• Plain English reviews of tenant communications as standard
• Easy Read training for employees
• Guidelines and training for employees on using inclusive and accessible language.

Where possible, we offer:

• Easy Read
• Audio
• Explainer videos with BSL
• Braille
• High contrast.

All communications are available in large print and plain language.

Our culture encourages colleagues to invest in their development, actively seek opportunities to grow themselves and their teams, share their knowledge and support others in their development.

Development opportunities have ranged from mandatory training and e-learning to coaching, mentoring, and career development programmes.

We have supported those who want to volunteer or gain qualifications and have run management and leadership training programmes to develop strong leaders across the business.

• continuous personal and professional development and support to develop achievable career plans
• on-the-job training
• personal review and development planning
• coaching and mentoring – both from externally qualified and internal coaches and mentors
• apprenticeships - from level 2-7 relevant to role and specialist areas
• digital learning - formal learning resources available via our MYLO platform
• job shadowing - the opportunity to spend time with colleagues in other teams to understand how we work together towards our Strategic Plan

Our most recent employee engagement survey had a 71% response rate, with an Engagement Index Score of 84% and a healthy Employee Net Promoter Score of +37 (how likely employees were to recommend the organisation). These results demonstrate strong employee engagement across the Group.

People told us that they are committed to Progress and to their colleagues and are happy in their work.