Careers programme shortlisted for Women in Housing Award
Our commitment to supporting the careers of women working at Bromford and reducing the gender pay gap has led to us being shortlisted for a prestigious industry award.
We’ve been shortlisted for the Best Career Development Initiative award at the Women in Housing Awards taking place tonight (Monday 26 June). It’s all part of the work we’ve been doing in recent years to support the careers of women at Bromford and ensure that this is a place where their careers can thrive.
We launched our female accelerator programme last year in partnership with Allbright, as part of our ongoing work to reduce our gender pay gap, which is one of the key performance indicators of a £75m revolving credit facility we agreed with a lender in 2020.
Since we secured the funding it’s raised awareness of the gender pay gap at Bromford and we’ve managed to reduce it from 7.1% to 6.5%. Supporting the careers of some of our talented female colleagues to fulfil their potential at Bromford through initiatives like our female accelerator programme will help us to reduce it even further.
There’s evidence that the top 25% high performing organisations are the most diverse organisations, so there’s a clear benefit to having more female senior leaders in a business and that’s something we recognise and want to encourage. The programme was open to all women and when we read through the applications, they were so strong that we decided to fund all 16 of them. The feedback has been so positive and it seems to have been at the right time, right place for a lot of them. We’re delighted to have been shortlisted for the award and are committed to providing further opportunities to elevate diversity and inclusion at Bromford.
One of those to take part in the most recent cohort was head of homelessness & community investment Hazel O’Halloran, who added:
It’s the best course I have ever done. I am so grateful to Bromford for the opportunity to do it. We had an exceptional group from a variety of different organisations ranging from women who had just finished their graduate placement right up to senior leaders but everyone went through moments of showing their vulnerabilities and showing their strengths. It’s a really valuable experience but you have to be ready to take a look at yourself and be honest with yourself in the process.
While policy, planning and performance manager Jo Ellis added:
I would highly recommend the course – I didn’t want it to end. It was just the right amount of people in each session and everyone was there for the same reason. There was something to learn in every session – I found it incredibly valuable.
After care manager Daisy Beck was among the first cohort of Bromford colleagues to complete the course. Speaking afterwards she said:
This programme was very much about positive self-reflection and learning about the skills that you've already got and how you apply them. One of the things I took away was the language that I used and changing the negative self-talk. And it wasn't so much what position you're in now, it was about how can you be a better version of yourself.
We’re one of eight companies shortlisted for the award, with the winners due to be announced tonight (Monday 26 June) as part of the opening ceremony for Housing 2023 in Manchester.
