About Cadwyn Housing Association

Chris is a natural leader as Cadwyn's previous Best Companies results have shown. As the leader of the organisation she operates in an open, fair and honest way and is hard working and focused on doing the right thing for tenants and employees. She adapts her leadership style to meet the needs of those she works with, providing intellectual stimulation and encouragement for people to develop. She uses a mentoring and coaching approach to empower people to make decisions and take responsibility for their decisions and actions. She has the ability to inspire people to want to make a difference and exceed customer expectations. This is important in the environment and climate Cadwyn are currently working in as resources are more limited and the business is relying on employees to do more with less. Chris has high energy levels and a drive for new projects and is willing to take risks and be accountable when things go wrong and she is not afraid to hold her hand up and say when they do. Chris encourages and maintains a no blame culture by reinforcing this in her language and behaviours. She is passionate about people, improving the lives of the people and has strong values which permeates the culture of the organisation. People enjoy working for Chris as she is truly inspirational, she never complains, is interested in employees and their lives and shares with employees the importance of what they do as an organisation.

In 2013 Cadwyn set up a Health and Wellbeing group. The aim of the group is to support employees to improve their overall health and wellbeing. The wellbeing areas they are looking at are Smoking, Mental Health, Alcohol and Substance Misuse, Nutrition, Musculoskeletal Disorders, Physical Activity. Examples of what the group has facilitated over the last year to help their employees improve their health and wellbeing include: employees who want to stop smoking by paying for hypnotherapy sessions, holding cessation classes in work time, having a smoke free environment, provide information on local facilities and events that can help improve/maintain their physical activity, walking events, 3 peaks, providing bikes to travel to business appointments /travel to and from work etc. We pay for employees to attend counselling sessions during work time to help with work and personal related problems. Employees have used this when they have family or relationship breakdowns as although their performance is not affected they want to support them through difficult times. Cadwyn have held back/head massages on site for employees in work time to help improve Musculoskeletal Disorders and psychological wellbeing. To enhance wellbeing they try and accommodate individual’s needs rather than a one size fits all policy i.e. work compressed hours to accommodate their domestic needs, supported a career break for employees to personally develop her personal interests, supported employees to work from home when they have not been well enough to come into the office.

Every year Cadwyn get all of their employees together in one room and at the same time to have fun, meet work colleagues, celebrate the organisations achievements during the year, and hear the key priorities to focus on over the next 6 months. Employees spend a lot of time together and often work in pressurised environments/roles. Being able to have fun with work colleagues helps them to relax and have time out together. Cadwyn incorporate icebreakers/exercises into the day to provide them with an opportunity to get to know new colleagues/ones they do not interact with often by getting to know their interests - their favourite music, films, and hobbies. It also helps to build on the existing relationships they have with the ones they work closely with. Sharing these positive experiences helps remove the traditional barriers; perceptions about each other, tensions that can arise between teams etc. Their employees love to be asked their opinions, so the afternoon event is dedicated to spending time having fun doing teambuilding activities. Employees are asked how they would like to spend the afternoon, and the top 3/4 activities are chosen. Activities chosen are designed to reflect the diversity of their employees from the very competitive, those that like to do something calm and relaxing, ones that challenge the mind, take people out of their comfort zones etc. For examples last year they did dragon boating and canoeing, mini master chef learning to make sushi, mini Olympics with a pampering session or paintballing.