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Working For Estuary

Estuary Housing Association is committed to attracting and retaining high quality and self motivated staff.  We strive to make a positive impact on our customers and local communities. To achieve this we need staff that feel valued, work together effectively and are committed to performing well. Improving the way we work and strengthening the organisation is therefore hugely important to achieving this.

Training

We place great importance on the training and continual development of our employees. All of Estuary’s training opportunities are fully funded so are of great benefit to all of our employees.

Our training programme includes:

• Mandatory Training and updates for all Care and Support Staff
• NVQ’s in Health & Social Care, Housing and Leadership & Management
• Equality and Diversity Training
• Specialist Skills Training
• IT Training
• Management Development Programmes

SHPS pension scheme

Estuary offers access to a strong and worthwhile pension scheme which all members of staff can join up to.  The Social Housing Pension Scheme is administrated by the Pension Trust and is the leading UK scheme for people working in Social Housing. Currently with over 58,000 members .

What is the Mindful Employer Charter?

The Mindful Employer symbol is displayed by employers who have signed the Mindful Employer Charter who wish to improve the working lives of their staff and willing to work towards better mental health practice. Being given the right to display the symbol means that we are committed to:

• Supporting mental health within the workplace and the wider community;
• Working towards putting principles in to practice and implement other best practice obtained from Mindful Employers and supporting organisations;
• Understanding that people who have mental health issues may have experienced discrimination in recruitment and selection procedures and that this may discourage them from seeking employment;
• Understand that whilst some people will acknowledge their experience of mental health issues in a frank and open way, others fear that stigma will jeopardise their chances of getting a job;
• Provide appropriate support as the vast majority of people who have experienced mental ill health continue to work successfully as do many with ongoing issues;
• Show a positive and enabling attitude to employees and job applicants with mental health issues. This will include positive statements in local recruitment literature;
• Ensure that all staff involved in recruitment and selection are briefed on mental health issues and the Equality Act 2010, and given appropriate interview skills;
• Make it clear in any recruitment or occupational health check that people who have experienced mental health issues will not be discriminated against and that disclosure of a mental health problem will enable both employee and employer to assess and provide the right level of support or adjustment;
• Not make assumptions that a person with a mental health problem will be more vulnerable to workplace stress or take more time off than any other employee or job applicant;
• Provide non-judgemental and proactive support to individual staff who experience mental health issues;
• Ensure all line managers have information and training about managing mental health in the workplace.

For more information visit Mindful Employer.

In 2009 Estuary Housing Association were awarded this accreditation by JobcentrePlus on the basis that it has achieved 5 commitments:

• To interview all disabled applicants who meet the minimum criteria for a job vacancy and to consider them on their abilities
• To ensure there is a mechanism in place to discuss, at any time but at least once a year, with disabled employees, what both parties can do to make sure disabled employees can develop and use their abilities 
• To make every effort when employees become disabled to make sure they stay in employment 
• To take action to ensure that all employees develop the appropriate level of disability awareness needed to make sure these commitments work 
• To review these commitments each year and assess what has been achieved, plan ways to improve on them and let employees and Jobcentre Plus know about progress and future plans

Current job vacancies

Click here for more information on our current job vancancies.

Find out more about working for us.

Carers

The series "I Care..." focus mainly on the perception and image of the social care sector by promoting people who use services, the range of employers, different settings, job roles, training and development and career progression. This is designed to highlight work opportunities within social care and the tools available which include case studies and an interactive quiz which is designed for use in several ways. The quiz talks about the skills and attributes needed in the sector and also describes some of the situation staff may face in their job. We know some people come into this sector, fired up with enthusiasm for their new role, but sometimes they don't have a full understanding of what's required and leave very soon after. Each time a new member of staff is recruited into the social care sector it could cost as much as £3,500 to recruit and train that person, so the quiz should help applicants understand more about their role from the outset.

The quiz and other "I Care" information can be found at: http://www.skillsforcare.org.uk/entry_to_social_care/Icare/I_Care.aspx

Last updated: 20 December 2012