We want to ‘live our values’ and as an organisation, our values are not just words. Our values provide us with purpose and set a standard for how we work with one and other.
Over the past year we have made some clear commitments that support our values led culture:
Real Living Wage Employer
From April 2022 we have committed to pay the Real Living Wage to all our staff because we believe they deserve a wage that meets their everyday needs. The minimum wage set by the Government is not calculated according to what people and their families need to live whereby the Real Living Wage is independently calculated based on what people need to get by.
You can find out more about the Real Living Wage here: What is the real Living Wage? | Living Wage Foundation
Paid Internships and Traineeships
Our Board of Trustees made the decision to no longer offer unpaid traineeships. Unpaid traineeships can create barriers to entering the environment sector, we want our work to be accessible to all and are committed to supporting those early in their career with accessing paid work experience.
Kickstart Scheme Working with East Midlands Chamber of Commerce we welcomed 10 funded Kickstart placements, helping young people at risk of long-term unemployment access paid work in roles across the organisation. Our teams have benefitted from new perspectives and ideas as well as valuable help and support and the placement participants have gained important skills to help them in their future career. We are delighted that some placements have gained further employment with the Trust and others have gained employment elsewhere.
New ways of working
We have embraced hybrid working and engage with staff regularly to get their thoughts and insights, they said overall they are more productive and have improved wellbeing from being able to work at home as well as on site so are continuing to support this way of working in 2022 and beyond. We were grateful to receive Heritage Funding during the pandemic, some of which supported a revamp of our Head Office to create a fun and productive workplace for staff and volunteers to collaborate with comfortable seating, standing desks and plants to improve air quality and wellbeing.
9 Day Fortnight
We are excited to be trialling a ‘9 Day Fortnight’ working pattern which will see full time staff work their hours over 9 days, with no reductions in pay. We hope that having every other Friday off work will bring further wellbeing and productivity rewards and are excited to be piloting something new and different at the Trust.
We hope 2022 will be another exiting year as we continue to learn from each other and promote a values led culture.
