About Coast & Country Housing

Iain and Ronny always send out the "Weekly Brief" to all staff on a Friday. At the Communications Summit Coast and Country Housing asked employees what they like about the Weekly Brief and one of the main things was that they loved receiving it along with a have a good weekend message from the Leadership Team. Their CEO and Assistant CEO are also active on their social media style intranet Mypad. They comment on things going on around the business and also post on their blogs. Ronny often posts motivational pictures and cartoons.

Coast and Country Housing know that their people are their most important asset. They have a Health and Wellbeing focus group that meets regularly. The group have set up bike maintenance workshops so employees can have their bikes maintained and fixed. Also, the wellbeing group also suggested the Laughter yoga and Hypnosis sessions. These have been a great success with high take up. They support employees who take part in races, sporting activities. It is also acknowledged that focus on health and wellbeing and excellent customer service go hand in hand. People who are engaged in work are able to offer better quality service. As such Coast and Country Housing offer excellent opportunities for flexible working as they realise they are a huge help to people with children and those responsible for caring for others. They recently paved the way with their partnership with Carers Together. They are a local charity who seek to support Carers. Since this partnership was formed they have been able to support two Carers to remain in employment with Coast and Country Housing. This includes a year long sabbatical so the employee can take time to care for their disabled child. By supporting employees with a holistic approach Coast and Country Housing find the overall wellbeing of their workforce is vastly improved.

Coast and Country's biggest community initiative this year has been the development of a Furniture Reuse Scheme, Refurnish Emporium. The scheme, at the site of former sale rooms, was opened in September 2014 by Wayne Hemingway. Offering low cost household goods that were otherwise destined for the tip, it reduces the amount of furniture going to landfill but also offers training and volunteering opportunities. Over the few weeks of being open, 15 volunteers have joined, taking up a range of training courses including first aid, manual handling, paint effects and furniture restoration. The volunteers get involved in the repair, cleaning and sometimes the up cycling of the goods to get them ready for resale as well as the helping in the shop. Their community hub, Westfield Farm, continues to support people in the community. People come along to get involved in their local community and volunteer in the garden for example, growing food for the local food bank. Some come along to get themselves on-line with help from Coast and Country's digital champions and their free IT suite. Most come along to get help with finding training and employment opportunities through their work hubs, a range of free training courses and their employment initiative, Forging Futures. Forging Futures, part of the Journey into Work Project, offers up to 70 guided learning hours in self-enterprise skills and then offers a number of paid work placements to the participants to help them gain valuable experience that they can use on their CV.