About North Star Housing Group

The senior team are visible, proactive and committed to developing behaviour of good leadership within the organisation. They are role models for their values of collaboration, flexibility, integrity, professionalism and ambition. They show evidence of this by operating an “ open door “ policy so that they are easy to access, avoiding e mail wherever possible and walk the floor as a way of being visible and human within the business, stopping to chat to people about their families and the work that they are doing. This helps them to understand what is going on for people, attending every team meeting twice a year and do not go with an agenda but simply ask staff to be prepared to tell them what they would do if they were boss for a day and be ready to ask anything. They have not been short of any suggestions or questions sponsoring every cross functional project team. This helps them to remain engaged and enables a wide variety of staff to come into contact with and work with them, participate in all social and charitable events, coaching staff as a way of helping them attain or embed new skills, mentoring junior members of staff, being curious and interested in the business and the people who work within it and being authentic.

During the last year North Star have involved all staff in the launch of new services and initiatives including new ways of capturing feedback, their new maintenance services, their approach to value for money, invited all staff to their 40th year celebrations, designed, developed and delivered their Leading and Growing Staff conference with another planned for October 2014. During Octobers event staff will help them to further refine their strategy, funded an annual xmas event and use this occasion to present their “ Staff Oscars”. Staff were nominated by their peers and winners receive an Oscar and a prize. The team of the year receives £200 to organise an event to celebrate their success. The business closes for this celebration, provided £200 per team to enable staff to host lunchtime social events. The first one took place in June and was really well attended with around 80% of the organisation taking part in a “ pub themed “ event with pie and peas and a pub quiz. They also raised £200 for charity. Staff from dispersed offices hosted their own event and connected to the main event via video link, supported the staff nominated charity of the year including the hosting of a big lunch which raised £300.

During the year North Star established a “Stronger Together” group made up of staff champions whose role is to represent the views of staff, ensure that communication is ongoing and effective and canvas staff views about social activities. The group had only been established for a month when they achieved IIP Gold. Instead of the CEO and Senior Team deciding on an event they asked the staff champions if they wanted to work out with staff what the staff wanted to do. They also asked them if they would take on organisation and planning within a pre-agreed budget. They almost snapped off their hands! They organised a night on the lawn of a country house hotel. They had booked a marquee, barbecue, drinks, casino, transport and the whole event was gold themed to tie in with the IiP award with balloons, table decorations and invites. They negotiated a free room from the hotel which they then raffled off and raised money for their nominated charity. It was a successful event, has given people a load of confidence, new skills and a renewed vigour for organising other opportunities to bring people together. This has been in direct response to staff who have asked for more social activities as a way of getting to know their colleagues better.