Life at PCH

Our 650 strong workforce are central to us delivering our mission of a high-quality affordable home for everyone

Everyone has a role to play at Plymouth Community Homes (PCH). Our Strategic Business Plan sets out what we want to achieve and how we are going to make it happen, and each and every member of our staff works towards this.

Our values are also really important to us because they help to guide how we get the results we want. We ask all our staff to live by those values when working for PCH - Care. Respect. Listen. Do the right thing.

Pay

We pay competitive salaries for all roles across the company. Rates of pay are at a fixed rate for each role and have been benchmarked by an external third party.

Each year, we review annual salary increases in line with Retail Price Index (RPI) and subject to Business Plan constraints and Board review.

Extensive discounts

Every employee of PCH has access to ‘Jannet’, our online platform which offers a range of discounts across national retailers including Tesco, Currys, Vue Cinema. Michael Kors and more. There’s a discount for everyone, no matter your need!

We’ve teamed up with the Civil Service Sports Club (CSSC) so our staff can access a variety of benefits for a small monthly membership fee. This includes local and national offers on family days out, discount cinema tickets and more. Full details can be found on the CSSC website.

Pension

We offer a Defined Contribution Pension Scheme to all new employees under the Social Housing Pension Scheme (SHPS). We believe that we should all make adequate provision for our futures, so when you contribute to your pension, we also make a generous contribution.

As part of this, you will also receive a death in service benefit of three times your salary.

Holiday and extended leave

We want you to have a good work-life balance and our holiday entitlement reflects this.

Leave allowance starts at 25 days per year and increases with service to a maximum of 30 days, as well as entitlement to bank holidays.

Once a year, you’ll also have the option to buy or sell up to an extra week’s holiday, spreading this cost over 12 months.

Health and overall wellbeing

Private healthcare

We offer our staff the opportunity to sign up for a private healthcare scheme through Westfield Healthcare. The scheme allows staff to access many healthcare benefits such as optical & dental care for a fee per month.

Company Sick Pay

We are all affected by illness from time to time which can affect our ability to work. On completion of probation and dependent on length of service, we have a generous company sick pay up to 4 months full and 4 months half.

24 hour employee assistance

We provide a 24hour employee advice, information and counselling service helpline to employees and families living at the same address. The service is free to access whenever needed. Advisers can talk through issues such as debt concerns, stress or relationships.

Mental Health First Aiders

We recognise that employees may suffer from both poor physical and mental health. We encourage our staff to raise any concerns they may have and to ensure they are supported within the workplace. We have a safe space at our head office, Plumer House, where anyone can take five minutes out and chat with one of our Mental Health First Aiders if they are struggling.

Onsite gym and cycle to work

We offer access to an onsite, fully equipped gym.

We recognise that some employees want to cycle to work to increase their activity levels or for more environmentally friendly reasons. With this in mind, we offer the Government's Cycle to Work Scheme which provides interest free loans on a cycling bike and safety accessories.

Hybrid and flexible working

Hybrid working*

We recognise that for some individuals, hybrid working is a significant benefit and is a positive factor in staff wellbeing. Where hybrid working is suitable for both the individual and job role, individuals work from their work base for two or three days a week and from their own home for the remainder of their working week.

Flexi Time*

We offer flexi hours for most of our roles within PCH. This means that you take advantage of earlier start and finish times to work around your commitments and lifestyle choices. The scheme allows you to take up to 13 additional days leave each year.

*for eligible roles.

Parental leave

We are family friendly

Maternity leave and pay

We offer an enhanced Occupational Maternity Pay (OMP) which goes above statutory entitlement.

Support for families

We also offer enhanced occupational Paternity Pay and shared parental leave as well as parental and dependants leave.

Emergency time off

In the event of an injury or critical illness of a member of your close family, employees are entitled to take up to three days paid leave after two days annual leave has been used.

We also provide up to five days paid bereavement leave.

"Plymouth Community Homes is a great place to work and an employer who cares about staff. A great team and a great place - doing the right thing for our residents."

Jay, Senior Communications Officer

Application guidance

Applying
Interview
Pre-employment checks

All our vacancies are advertised online.

Each advert will describe how you need to apply.

If you are applying for one of our roles, please refer to the job description and the PCH Behavioural Framework on the advert. You will need to give examples of how you meet the essential and desirable experience, knowledge, skills and qualifications from the person specification.

The online system accepts applications up to 11.59pm on the closing day, unless stated otherwise.

Shortlisting

Panel members will undertake the short-listing process which will be completed by the date provided in the advert. They will score your application against the essential criteria outlined in the person specification.

Guaranteed interview scheme for disabled applicants

If you have a disability and the panel agree that your application fulfils the essential criteria requirements identified in the person specification then you will be guaranteed an interview.

If you are a person with a disability and because of your impairment cannot fulfil certain criteria contained in the Person Specification, please ensure that you explain how you could meet the requirements in an alternative way, or with reasonable adjustments in your application.

Interview panels will consist of a minimum of two recruiting managers. Details of members will be provided to you with your invite to interview.

Interviews will be a series of competency based questions. You will be asked to provide examples of a time when you have demonstrated a skill in a specific situation of circumstance. To prepare, we recommend you re-read the job description as well as the information on our careers pages.

If the panel require you to give a presentation, you will be provided details in your interview invitation.

If you require any alterations, adaptations, alternatives or particular aids of equipment to make the interview process fully accessible, then you will be asked to let us know in advance of your interview date.

What to bring with you to interview

Documents showing your eligibility to work in the UK and original qualifications which are essential requirements for the role. This could also include your driving licence.

If you're successful at interview

The recruiting manager will contact you to offer you the role. You will then receive an offer letter. A number of pre-employment checks will be required prior to your commencement which will be outlined to you. It is recommended that you do not resign from your current position until a start date is confirmed with you.

If you're unsuccessful at interview

The recruiting manager will provide you with feedback and advise why you were unsuccessful on this occasion.

As well as evidence of your entitlement to work in the UK and qualifications to the role, our other checks include:

Occupational health check
References
DBS (Disclosure and Barring Service) for applicable roles only

Gender pay gap report 2023

We’re proud to be an employer of choice but we want to retain that positive culture, and this means investing in our staff through our pay and reward arrangements. Our values guide how we act as an organisation and provide a code of behaviours for our staff to live by, so we act fairly, honestly and with integrity. They ensure we behave with care and respect towards each other, listen to what they tell us, and always strive to do the right thing. Our Disability Confident Leader status assists us in attracting a more diverse and inclusive workforce. All this is supported by ensuring that our employees are fairly paid.

Having a diverse mix of talented people in our business leads to innovation, development and engagement, which is fundamental to our success.

We want to ensure that there are no potential barriers to the successful development and progression of women, or any minority group at Plymouth Community Homes.

What is the gender pay gap?

The gender pay gap is the difference between the average hourly earnings for men in an organisation and the average hourly earnings for women. For example, a 10% gender pay gap shows that women earn 10% less per hour, on average, than men. A negative -10% gender pay gap shows that women earn 10% more, on average than men.

The average is calculated as both mean and median. Mean earnings are calculated by adding up all hourly earnings and dividing them by the number of employees. Median earnings come from ranking all earnings from lowest to highest and identifying the employee in the middle of the list.

The mean (simple average) is preferred to the median as it gives a better measure of pay across the organisation. We are pleased to report that our mean gender pay gap reduced in 2023 from 4% to 2.7%.  Our median gender pay gap has also reduced from 5.8% to 4.1%.

 How we make additional payments

 In 2022, we made a one-off additional payment to all employees who were employed on the 1st October to support with the cost of living. We also introduced a refer-a-friend scheme which are included in these payments. The table below shows the proportion of employees who received these additional payments in the reporting period.

Proportion of Males Receiving Additional Payments %	95.7
Proportion of Females Receiving Additional Payments %	94.5

Our current figures

We have made progress in reducing the pay gap in a number of areas this year and we are confident the actions we are taking will support us in achieving our goal of reducing the gap further.

Overall, the distribution of women and men we employ varies across the types and seniority of roles. When we divide our employee team into four quarters (or ‘quartiles’) according to how much they earn, the proportion of men and women within each quartile is shown in the graphic below.

In terms of the gender distribution at PCH, 38.7% of the upper salary quartile are women occupying key senior management positions across the organisation. This has slightly decreased from 2022 by 2.5%.

We run counter to national trends by having a low female intake in the lower quartile roles. Our middle quartile salary roles do show an improved result with the Q3 occupations increasing in representation in females by 6.7%. There continues to be a traditional picture of more women in the Q3 administrative jobs and more males in the Q2 technical and building-related occupations.

What we are working on to support our progress

We will continue to monitor data and interpret what it shows us.
Create opportunities for females to move into non-traditional roles through our internal secondment opportunities and provide opportunities for growing our own talent.
Ensure our learning and development program is available to all.
Have a fair and transparent recruitment and selection process that includes innovative social media recruitment to attract the right candidates.
Ensure that we advertise in a wide range of media, including digital technologies that allow animations
Use positive gender-neutral role imagery in our advertising and employee literature.
We continue to encourage females to consider a wider range of roles within PCH by positively promoting opportunities at careers fairs and through our work supporting local schools, colleges and universities.
We promoting our apprenticeships to people of all genders and backgrounds, including internal employees who may wish to change careers.
Continue progress in meeting our EDI strategic objectives.
Continue to review our hybrid and flexible working practices to help colleagues balance home lives and health and well-being with work

And finally...

This is a strategy for the long term. For example, recruiting additional female apprentices into entry-level technical roles could actually depress our mean pay gap for a time.

But I and our Board are determined to maximise our potential as a diverse and inclusive organisation.

Sally Foden Head of Human Resources

Disability Confident Leader

We are proud to say that we are a disability confident leader. This means that we have been recognised as going the extra mile to make sure that disabled people get a fair chance.

PCH is committed to getting the right people for its business and striving to keep and develop them as employees.

Life at PCH

Our 650 strong workforce are central to us delivering our mission of a high-quality affordable home for everyone