About Spire Homes

Spire's Senior Management team 'live' the ethos, principles and values of the organisation particularly on a day to day basis. They take the time to greet colleagues and walk around the office every day and get to know colleagues on a personal level, and not just a work basis. There is an open door policy with no ivory towers at Spire. As is the Spire way, they work hard and always model the positive working culture by remaining in good spirit and not bringing bad moods to work. The Senior Management Team encourages flexibility and don't expect colleagues to stay late and work long hours. If for any reason, colleagues do stay later than normal; Senior Managers will take the time to ask why to see how they can help. A good work life balance is very important to their Senior Management Team who champions the Mi Life initiative and encourages flexibility. They encourage time away from day to day work as it is recognised that this is an important part of the job. They will always treat all colleagues with respect. The Senior Management Team will also challenge where their values are not lived, and encourage colleagues to take appropriate intervention to maintain their positive culture at Spire. The Senior Management Team regularly gets involved in fun activities to generate team spirit.

Mi Life is Spire's health and wellbeing programme and was launched following colleagues' feedback in April 2014. Their Mi Life group consists of champions who meet to set the vision and aims and look at how to bring these to fruition. The group meets monthly to organise the activities, decide the best way to spend the budget and plan the themes of the programme. Feedback from colleagues has been collected through an online survey. The focus has been around a better work/life balance with particular focus on relaxation, exercise, mind-management, as well as healthy eating. An outside communal garden area designed by colleagues opened to give colleagues an area to relax, but also to hold meetings. This is an example of how Spire is pro-active at introducing new practices. To promote healthy living they joined in with National Bike Week holding lunchtime cycle trips and a virtual cycle ride to Paris using their new exercise bike. There is a weekly lunchtime subsidised pilates class to help ease back and shoulder problems. Every colleague has a £20 personal budget to spend on anything that will enhance their wellbeing. During their Check your Numbers week ‘The Wellness Academy’ provided free of charge health checks for colleagues. This in turn led to nutrition work shops and water bottles being provided to all to help combat dehydration. National awareness days are celebrated throughout the year to raise awareness on smoking, alcohol, men’s health, back problems, healthy eating, hydration and exercise and many more.

Every year they hold a Spire's Customer Services week to say thank you to everyone for their continued hard work. It is a week when all Spire colleagues are reminded of the important part they play in the customer journey with fun activities, such as guess the baby competition and awards to nominate colleagues in categories ranging from The Florence Nightingale award to more humorous ones like the megaphone and most accident prone. Work shadowing colleagues from other teams plays an important part as this helps not only increase skills and knowledge, but to also see how best they can work together. Spire's Management Team go back to the floor during the week and then they have a celebratory finale lunch, where team cohesion is at its strongest. To promote team work they aim to do this in a fun, positive and creative way. Their 'Cocktails with their Customer Services and Customer Engagement Team' is a great example of how they promote, share ideas and feedback and get to know colleagues better. Everyone gets involved throughout the week and participates in one way or another. It's a popular team building event with colleagues taking the lead in delivering and bringing it to fruition.