Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) touches everyone, from our background and life experiences to the things that shape who we are and what we believe in.
For us at Aster, we strongly believe in treating everyone with respect, being an ally and creating a safe space so that we can all be honest about who we are, if we want to.
As a social landlord, we’re always looking for opportunities to celebrate our communities, listen to our customers’ views and promote their lived experiences.
Our customers' thoughts, views and experiences play a crucial role in how we shape our strategy, make improvements, and provide a better service for all our customers.
We provide our customers with safe, affordable homes and we’re committed to doing this in a way that supports our aims to lower our carbon footprint and protect the biodiversity of our communities. But what more could the sector be doing to reduce environmental impact through the design of its services - and how can we achieve this together?
2020/21 is a year that many of us won’t forget as a result of COVID-19. As a business, we had to act quickly to put measures in place to protect our colleagues and customers, while still delivering the services that our customers rely on. Our organisational resilience was tested, but because of our committed colleagues we were able to adapt and continue to provide services to our customers.
As part of National Customer Service Week this week, we’re celebrating our first anniversary working with the Institute of Customer Service.
We know many of our customers care for family members or close friends day in and day out, often without the chance to take a break themselves. We wholeheartedly recognise the incredible sacrifice they’ve made from their own lives to provide this care, but these past 18 months would have been even tougher as the pandemic made it difficult to access support services.
At Aster Group, we’re proud to have an almost even split of male and female colleagues. We do, however, recognise that when we look across the different departments within the business, there are less women working in our trade and maintenance teams than we’d like to see. However, as Group Customer Services Director Emma O’Shea explains, we’re on a mission to change that.