Peabody provides a unique environment that is both challenging and rewarding. We believe each employee contributes directly to our success. In turn, we do everything we can to ensure each team member experiences a unique success story. Growth - both in a personal and professional sense - is encouraged, nurtured, and celebrated.

Each day, we aim to provide a positive, team-oriented environment. When our team members come to work, they can rest assured that the people who surround them appreciate their thoughts, skills, and talents. We thrive on a daily exchange of ideas and opinions – and warmly welcome our team to share theirs.

As a Company, we’re dedicated to bringing novel ideas and creative strategies to our workplace. To make this happen, we strive to create a stimulating work environment, built on a can-do, results-oriented philosophy. In short - we hire smart individuals, respect creative thought, and reward results. Moreover, we believe employees who are treated with honesty and respect readily reflect these values in the workplace.

Recent Experience – Creation of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee

In the past two years, the COVID-19 crisis has had several different impacts on various racial and ethnic groups. We’ve witnessed nationwide protests and vocalization railing against systemic police brutality. We observed inequities in the social determinants of health, income and wealth, healthcare access and utilization, education, occupation, discrimination, and housing - the byproduct of decades of government policies that have systematically disadvantaged Black, Hispanic, and Native American communities.
For many, the pain, sorrow, and outrage that has steadily unfolded across America are unlike anything we have witnessed in our lifetimes. Thanks to our employees’ feedback, we have come to understand that this is the very pain, sorrow, and outrage that has burdened communities of color for generations. We also understand that we must be committed to so much more than just listening.
• We are committed to becoming allies for communities of color.
• We are committed to educating ourselves.
• We are committed to doing the hard work, not just today but in the future.
• We are committed to being part of the change that needs to happen.
• We are committed to action.
To this end, we committed ourselves to make substantive advancements in the areas of diversity, equity, and inclusion, which included the creation of an action plan to take meaningful steps toward combating racism and inequality.
Listed below are five concrete action steps Peabody has taken to further our diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts:
1. Continue to listen to our team members and the voices within our communities.
2. Engage a third-party Diversity and Inclusion Advisor. This Advisor has helped guide our organization through the process of effectively identifying and disrupting existing patterns of racism, implementing cultural changes, and developing training initiatives to create and foster an open and inclusive environment. This individual has also helped create mechanisms for surveying our internal audience and gathering data to promote active listening and a deeper understanding of team member experiences within our workplace and communities.
3. Form a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee. Working closely with Executive Leadership and our Diversity and Inclusion Advisor, we have convened a working group of 16 self-identified team members. The Committee has been tasked with; promoting training and events to bring awareness to diversity and inclusion in the workplace and our communities; engaging co-workers in diversity and inclusion conversation and training; reviewing and developing policies and procedures that will promote workplace diversity and inclusion; and, organizing and overseeing specific initiatives or outreach within the communities we manage.
4. Launch our Diversity and Inclusion Survey. The D/I survey has helped us bring clarifying data to an incredibly complex topic. Results from the survey have shown us if, where, and how different groups of team members experience our company culture - allowing us to build a more inclusive future.
5. Identify and create education and professional development opportunities to help our team members reflect on and talk about race and systemic racism, understand privilege, and the ways we can effect positive change.
As an organization, we recognize that diversity, inclusion, and equity create our strength. And we embrace and value those differences, while providing an equal opportunity environment for all residents, vendors, clients, and team members alike.
Furthermore, we keenly understand how locally targeted and inclusive hiring practices promote equity and significant economic opportunities for residents residing within the cities and towns in which we do business.
Through direct community outreach and engagement, we’re able to partner with local community-based organizations to hire the best-suited and locally based vendors.
To add to our local hiring efforts, Peabody is a SOMWBA – certified WBE and considers the procurement of high-quality goods and services through MBE/WBE firms a priority in its vendor management policy. To this end, Peabody has received numerous awards for MBE and WBE firm utilization. In fact, Peabody has been the recipient of MassHousing’s Multi-Million Dollar MBE and Million Dollar WBE Achievement Award 18 times since 2000.
And, while we are pleased to be recognized for our efforts, we are looking forward to continuing to cultivate the long-lasting professional relationships we have developed within our local communities, MBE/WBE vendors, and the excellent service these firms have - and will - continue to provide to our managed communities in the years to come.
When it comes to our team, Peabody openly welcomes individuals of all races, ages, genders, gender identities, sexual orientations, creeds, national origins, and individuals with disabilities, and we take great pride in how our residents, clients, and team members elevate their communities through thoughtful diversity initiatives. And, just as we have in the past, we will continue to stand with our members, partners, employees, and communities as we all work to understand and overcome injustices.
As we move ahead in 2022, we will build upon the successes of Peabody’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee and our action plan, as we continue to review our policies and programs while making a commitment to listen, engage, and create meaningful and substantive changes within our organization.
As Peabody’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee’s mission statement details, “At Peabody, we believe that we are “Stronger Together”. The mission of our Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee is to create and ensure an environment of respect, humility, and equity for all. We provide the stable foundation that guides our team; cultivating growth, development, leadership, and creating a unified culture that celebrates everyone’s identity.”
Peabody has always operated guided by a shared mission to “put the HOME in housing”. To us, home means not one but many things; it is somewhere where we are safe, loved, respected, and cared for. And, true to our mission, we will not stop our work until all people feel that safety, love, respect, and concern equally.