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What does equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) mean to Orbit and why is it so important?

Here at Orbit, we’re driven to lead in building thriving communities. Thriving communities are diverse, welcoming, fair and equal to all.

Our 2025 Strategy sets out the ways in which we are working to create a better society and our Customer Promise sets out our aims to be fair, inclusive and value diversity as we strive to deliver an excellent customer experience for each and every one of our customers.

We believe in providing an environment for our customers, colleagues and partners that gives everyone an equal chance to live, learn and work free from discrimination, harassment, victimisation and prejudice; an environment where everyone can thrive.

Read our EDI policy

What do we want to achieve?

Our ultimate aim is to ensure that our customers and colleagues are happy and comfortable expressing who they are.

To achieve this, we need to work alongside customers and employees to ensure that our business is a true reflection of the communities we serve and that our services are inclusive and designed to provide help and support for everyone.

Gender equality

We are taking actions to minimise our gender pay gap as part of our commitment to gender equality.

In March 2021 we celebrated International Women's Day (IWD), supporting the #ChooseToChallenge campaign. Read more about what we did here.

Disability equality

We take disability seriously and as an employer, we’re striving to improve all the time. We’ve also made significant changes to support our Independent Living customers, including the installation of Warden Call systems. 

As a disability confident employer, we want to create an environment in which all customers and colleagues are able to access our services, whether digital or physical. We aim to identify at least one action that we’ll carry out to make a difference for disabled people as part of our accreditation, as well as exploring other considerations to improve the way we do business.

We’re already doing a lot of the things listed as commitments, and by joining the Disability Confident Employers scheme we want to let everyone know that we’re serious about equal opportunities for disabled people.

Hidden Disabilities Sunflower

In 2016, the Hidden Disabilities Sunflower was designed and launched as part of Hidden Disabilities Sunflower Scheme Limited, a private company based in the UK. A simple sunflower design on a green background for a lanyard was created as a subtle but visible sign to identify that the wearer (or someone with them) may require some extra help, time, or assistance. Since its launch in 2016, it has now been adopted globally. For more information, watch this animation or visit the website.

Race, religion and ethnicity

The BITC Race at Work 2023 Scorecard Report, in collaboration with YouGov, found that only 11% of employers were currently capturing ethnicity and pay data. We are working on capturing ethnicity data to establish a baseline, and measure progress, as well as enabling us to report on pay differences. There are also benefits to gathering ethnicity and other EDI data about you, our customers – we can use this data to improve and personalise services. If you would like to update the information we hold about you, please visit orbitcustomerhub.org.uk/myaccount.

We’re striving to make sure that our customers feel the presence of our diverse organisation. We want our customers to be confident in engaging with us no matter what background they’re from, and to see that we’re representative of the communities we serve.

We’ve also signed up to the Business in the Community Race Charter and are working towards completing actions that will improve equality of opportunity at Orbit.

To learn more about how we celebrate holidays and events at Orbit, read our employee stories about Vaisakhi, Ramadan and Easter.

What have we done so far?

We don’t claim to know everything about equality, diversity and inclusion, but we’re open to learning. We’re working together to plan EDI events and provide structured learning for both customers and colleagues as a result.

We are appealing for more customers to help shape our approach to equality, diversity and inclusion and help us be the best organisation we can for everyone connected to Orbit.

In order to achieve our aims we would like a wider representation of customers from across the nine protected characteristics in our engaged customer base and our EDI Customer Hub group. We want to show just how committed we are to making sure that everyone can thrive with Orbit.

  • Contributing to raising awareness during LGBT+ History month, Black History month and on other notable awareness dates relating to equality, diversity and inclusion
  • Organising colleague and customer webinars featuring guest speakers
  • Ensuring that both customer and colleague activities and events are inclusive and accessible to all

International Women's Day

In March 2021 we celebrated International Women's Day (IWD), supporting the #ChooseToChallenge campaign. Our vision is to lead in building thriving communities and that means communities which are fair and equal to all, with all the societal benefits that equality, diversity and inclusion brings.

We celebrated some of our many inspirational female colleagues who contribute so much to our communities, our homes and our workplace by sharing their stories and hopes for the future across our social media channels: 

Dementia Awareness Week

Throughout Dementia Awareness Week our EDI Allies raised awareness and shared stories across our internal channels.

Our Independent Living colleagues at Tithe Lodge and Queensway Court shared the ways that they help their residents who are living with dementia:

  • Get chatting!
  • Help them relive cherished moments by sharing their life experiences
  • Get motor skills going by knitting ‘twiddle muffs’, knitted hand warmers which act as sensory stimulation for someone with dementia
  • Play their favourite songs and unlock precious memories through music
  • Host a puzzle and games night!

Queensway Court also hosted a tombola and coffee morning, with all funds raised going to the Alzheimer’s Society.

Are you interested in becoming a ‘Dementia Friend’?

A Dementia Friends Champion is a volunteer who encourages others to make a positive difference to people living with dementia in their community, by giving them information about the personal impact of dementia, and what they can do to help. It's easy to get involved. Find out more here.

‘Becoming a Dementia Friend Champion has undoubtedly been one of the most positive and exciting things I've done.’ – Jane Gilby, Dementia Friends Champion

What’s next?

In the UK, nearly 1 million people with dementia and their families are struggling to get the support and care that they need and deserve. This Dementia Action Week, the Alzheimer’s Society called on the Government to increase support for carers with a petition: #CureTheCareSystem

It doesn’t have to be this way. With the right support people with dementia can live a good quality of life, doing what matters most to them for as long as possible without putting inexorable strain on their carers and loved ones. Find out more here.

Pride Month 

Stories from your communities

Pride month is dedicated to celebrating LGBTQ+ communities all around the world. Engaged Customer, John Bennett, has been working with us to promote equality, diversity, and inclusion, with a focus on LGBTQ+ residents.

We’re proud allies to our LGBTQ+ community all year round and are delighted to take the opportunity this Pride Month to share stories from your communities and give you the opportunity to hear from them directly.

Read John's blog post

Sandra’s journey

Sandra was around eight years old when she felt she was ‘different’. At the age of 80 she knew she wasn’t living life as her true self and decided to act on it. Hear about Sandra’s inspirational story in the video below:

 

Maurice’s story

Earlier this year caught up with Maurice, a member of OLGBT Stoke, to chat to him about his life’s journey since coming out in the 1980’s and his experience of living with HIV. What followed was an incredible story of resilience, determination and, ultimately, joy as he now lives his life as his authentic self, supporting others in the LGBTQ+ and HIV community. Listen to the podcast below:

 

LGBTQ forum

We have created a LGBTQ+ forum for customers to get involved and help us become more inclusive. Verity from our Customer Engagement team said:

“We were delighted to set up our first LGBTQ+ group for customers to be part of and held our first meeting on 30 March 2022. We were joined by LGBTQ+ customers and agreed our terms of reference for the group. We’ve got meetings booked in for the year ahead, where we’ll be getting the group to look at equality impact assessments on our policies, reviewing of engagement opportunities to help us be more inclusive and to help us increase LGBTQ+ visibility”.

If you’d like to know more about this group, please email customer.engagement@orbit.org.uk.

Read more

Inspire Awards

In 2021 our February 2021 LGBT+ History Month campaign was shortlisted in the ‘Most Inspiring Campaign’ category at the Inspire awards! The Inspire Awards celebrate Diversity & Inclusion in UK Construction, Engineering & Housing, and given that this was the first time that we fully aligned our colleague, customer, and corporate campaigns, we were extremely proud to be shortlisted for this award. 

During LGBT+ History Month, we announced that we had signed up to the HouseProud Pledge. Throughout the month, activities led by our EDI Allies focussed on four key aspects of Pride History, including; the Pride flag, Stonewall, other historic moments and June’s Pride celebration month.

The HouseProud Pledge

Why we signed up

The HouseProud Pledge is a scheme that all social housing providers can sign up to, demonstrating their commitment to LGBTQ+ resident equality and support.

It has been developed by HouseProud and the University of Surrey in association with residents, staff members and sector leaders to address the issues raised by the findings of ‘No Place Like Home?’, the largest study ever undertaken to understand LGBTQ+ experiences of social housing. Research by HouseProud has found that:

  • 60% of trans respondents did not feel that their neighbourhood was a safe place to live
  • One in five gay men reported modifying their home in some way (e.g. moving pictures or books) to hide their sexual orientation from a visiting repairs operative or housing officer
  • A third of respondents felt that their housing provider was not able to deal effectively with issues like harassment.

We’re signed up to the HouseProud Pledge as it gives us a framework to start working with you to take action and show our commitment to LGBTQ+ equality and support.

LGBTQ+ Housing Pledge pioneer status

We are proud to have been awarded the LGBTQ+ Housing Pledge Pioneer status, recognising our ongoing commitment to creating safe, inclusive, and welcoming environments for our LGBTQ+ residents. This prestigious status highlights our efforts to lead the way in promoting LGBTQ+ equality within the housing sector. By signing the pledge, we reaffirm our commitment to supporting and empowering our LGBTQ+ customers and colleagues, ensuring that everyone feels safe and valued in their homes and communities.

Read more about our journey and the award here.

What are we currently doing to accelerate our EDI plans?

Our internal EDI programme has led to the creation of a group known as the EDI Allies, consisting of representatives from across the business who have helped to shape Orbit’s approach to equality, diversity and inclusion.

These employees are passionate about making a difference and supporting their colleagues. By sharing their personal experiences and being driven to bring about positive change, our EDI Allies have improved Orbit’s EDI agenda. We want to accelerate the progress we’ve made in this are by working more closely with our customers to understand their priorities, concerns and what matters most them.

We have created forums for colleagues to connect, ask questions and gain support, and we have delivered EDI training for all colleagues and managers to further awareness and understanding of some of the key issues relating to equality, diversity and inclusion. We want to build on this momentum with our customers and are appealing for more customers to join our EDI Customer Hub to help shape our approach to equality, diversity and inclusion and help us be the best organisation we can for all our customers.

Get involved

Why we want you to get involved

We want to build on the momentum we have created with our internal equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) programme and our EDI Allies, and we are appealing for more customers to join our EDI Customer Hub. We want you to help shape our approach to equality, diversity and inclusion and help us be the best organisation we can be for all of our customers.

We’re asking customers to talk to us and share their experiences. It is important to be able to understand the experiences of people who belong to the many different backgrounds that make up our communities. This will help us to develop services designed to support each and every one of our customers. We want to hear from you and work with you to continue this journey.

How you can get involved

We’re extremely proud that we can share the desires, improvements and constructive feedback customers have given us that we have then delivered on. For more information about You Said, We Did, join the Your Voice platform. We’ve taken some really big steps to involve more and more customers in our plans and processes, but we want this to continue to evolve.

We’ve already had customer consultations on the following:

We’re planning to consult our customers on:

  • Our EDI calendar of events, which includes -
    • Dementia Awareness Week
    • Pride Month
    • Black History Month
    • Positive Aging
    • Disability History Month
    • International Day of Persons with a Disability
    • National Carers Week
    • International Women’s Day.

If you’d like to get involved with these plans, visit orbitcustomerhub.org.uk/get-involved or email us at customer.engagement@orbit.org.uk

The BITC Race at Work 2018 Scorecard Report, in collaboration with YouGov, found that only 11% of employers were currently capturing ethnicity and pay data. We are working on capturing ethnicity data to establish a baseline, and measure progress, as well as enabling us to report on pay differences. There are also benefits to gathering ethnicity and other EDI data about you, our customers – we can use this data to improve and personalise services. If you would like to update the information we hold about you, please visit orbitcustomerhub.org.uk/myaccount.

Resources 

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