About Action for Blind People

A key part of Action's culture is that they have no hierarchy. Therefore words such as Senior are not used. Instead they have a Strategic Leadership Team. In the past year this group has undertaken its own review and development through surveying the needs of team/individual development and also shaping the content and purpose of the Senior Management Team. As a result of this the Senior Leadership Team now only meets six times per year and the items discussed are purely strategic and operational matters are dealt with locally or through regional teams. Stephen is a unique Chief Executive. He aims to meet as many employees as possible, operates a truly 'open door' policy and is accessible to every member of staff not just his direct reports. Despite being at Action for a number of years, he is constantly striving to make people who are blind or partially sighted at the centre of everything they do, through challenging and motivating staff to make them question they are doing the best they can and changing and shaping the organisation so it is able to meet the future needs and challenges.

Due to the nature of the client group they work with understandably all of their efforts and spare resources are directed to working with people who are blind or partially sighted. However through their ICT team they do support providing computer equipment to developing countries once its lifespan has expired at Action.

Action has a proactive Staff Forum that is attended by the Chief Executive and Head of HR, but very much employee led. The Chair of Staff Forum sits on the Senior Leadership Team and so creates an effective communication link to Staff Forum representatives. Due to their regional spread they use tele/video conferencing and online chat rooms to discuss projects and ideas. There are also regular road shows with the directors in attendance which help to inform and reinforce with employees their future strategy, but also a Q&A session which allows employees to ask a director and receive a response directly. The survey results will form part of the on-going HR strategy to make Action an 'Employer of Choice'. Once the results are received they plan to work closely with their Staff Forum and Senior Leadership Team to produce an action and engagement plan to address the areas of development but also to promote those areas that are recognised as 'best practice'.