Our people are at the centre of upholding our values, helping us to supply much needed new homes creating and supporting strong communities.
We aim to nurture our employees by keeping them safe, prioritising wellbeing, developing their skills, and providing a means to fulfil their individual ambitions in a diverse and inclusive environment.
We want to equip our current and future workforce with the skills and knowledge they need, by ensuring that relevant training is easily accessible.
All employees have access to our comprehensive e-learning platform, allowing individuals to access on-demand training covering a range of topics.
In 2022-23, Avant delivered targeted training as follows:
Every employee received training on the requirements of the New Homes Quality Code which we have embraced across the Group.
We understand the importance of working with external sources to help nurture our talent and support our growth strategy through:
We support the health and wellbeing of our people.
Employees are offered private medical insurance which they can add close family to if they wish. All directors are also offered free full health screening every 3 years, which has a high uptake of 70%.
We recognise the importance of mental health. Nominated employees have attended Mental Health England’s accredited 2 -day course. We also provide Employee Assistance Program which provides confidential support on issues such as mental health, gambling, housing, alcohol, and drugs, as well as an online wellbeing platform.
Health and safety is our number one priority.
Our in-house group health and safety team provide specialist advice to each region as well as undertake compliance reviews to keep everyone safe. In 2022-23, 539 unannounced construction site inspections were conducted, ensuring compliance with our health and safety policies and procedures, the Health and Safety at Work Act, and all other associated regulations.
Best practice and improvement areas are shared with management and our colleagues throughout Avant, and good performance is highlighted via internal league tables. Our Group Health and Safety Manager also represents us at the Home Builders Federation’s (HBF) Health and Safety Committee to support the drive to improve the sector’s performance.
We have established environmentally related targets to ensure we mitigate our environmental impact.
Achieve 3.5 or below for our Group Annual Injury Incidence Rate (AIIR) per 1,000 workers.
AIIR of 2.6 (exc. manufacturing).
Minimise RIDDOR (‘Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations’) incidences.
5 RIDDOR’s (exc. manufacturing).
Conduct 2 site inspections per month as a minimum by the Group HR Department:
• 1 for advice and guidance
• 1 for a formally scored review
Achieved.
Additional inspections are conducted, depending on the risk associated with the development.
Achieve 99% site inspection compliance with our internal requirements.
98.89%
Our Group HR department supported by each of our regional teams oversees our charitable donations.
Over the last four years, we have donated nearly £30,000 to charities that are important to our employees.
We raise money by running group-wide sponsorship events such as MacMillan Coffee Mornings, Christmas Jumper Days and Children in Need. We also sponsor our employees in personal charity events from marathons to skydiving.
We recognise that a healthy, diverse, and inclusive workforce supports a sustainable business. This brings unique insights, increased creativity, innovation, higher productivity rates and better customer engagement. We celebrate national and internal events such as World Mental Health Day, International Women's Day, and Women in Construction.
The industry lacks female representation with only 4% of site managers and just 16% of senior construction industry roles being filled by women. However, at Avant we want to encourage women to enter the industry at all levels and across all disciplines.
Hear from our colleagues:
Company Sectretary and General Counsel
Construction is a very rewarding industry for women to work in. My journey in construction started when I was a private practice lawyer working in real estate and development finance. I chose to focus on residential development as the tangible nature of the work always appealed to me. I like the fact that I can drive past housing schemes that I played a small role in buying in as long ago as 1999 as well as the developments that we buy at Avant today.
Working at Avant has allowed me to build upon my understanding of the pushes and pulls of operating a successful business. The legal team at Avant is full of talented women and when I look round HBF meetings too, there is a high proportion of women working in legal within housebuilders demonstrating the opportunities available.
Engineer
A career in construction wasn’t something that I had initially thought about. I was unsure which university course to do after finishing my A’ levels when I stumbled upon a role at a large housebuilder. I got the job and found that I was passionate about house design work. After studying a part time engineering course, I started doing design work on some of the smaller developments until progressing to managing the larger, more challenging sites.
For the first few years of my career there weren’t many women in the industry doing technical jobs such as site management, engineering, and architecture, and it was sometimes challenging to change people’s perspectives of what roles women should pursue. The industry has changed, and there are now more and more women considering these roles and excelling in them. A few years ago, I was asked to go into a primary school and give a talk on the opportunities for women in construction. Most of the girls in the class had never considered it as an option before, as they viewed it as “a job for boys”. It was nice to be able to show that the opportunities are there if you want to take them. Since joining Avant, I have been given the support and backing to manage challenging developments. I have also been more closely involved with other departments, providing engineering advice and solutions on new and ongoing developments. This has given me a broad understanding of the house building industry from a land enquiry stage through to customer care.
