Life at Ashfords

When you are considering a career move, it’s difficult to get under the skin of what it’s really like to work there – how do colleagues work together, what are the work and development opportunities like, is it a culture where I can thrive and make a difference. 

At Ashfords we take our culture and working environment really seriously and work hard to make sure it delivers for our people. This page includes some examples of what we do and how we work, helping you discover a bit more about what life is like at the firm.

How we work

We recognise flexibility is important to our people and we operate a hybrid working model, which we call our ‘Ways of Working’ framework. As part of this framework, and to ensure a good balance of home and office working, we encourage teams to spend time working together in the office on two ‘anchor days’ each week.  

To support that flexibility we have adapted our office space to suit quiet working as well as collaborative team working. We also have a variety of tools and technologies to support effective remote working  - whether at home or on client site.  

How we communicate and engage:

We have an active communication and engagement programme, which includes:

• Regular firm news shared via our intranet and daily firm-wide news updates. 
• Pulse surveys to seek the views of our people on a whole range of topics, from benefits and hybrid working to our environmental impact and volunteering activities.  
• An annual people survey that drives actions and improvements, whether that's around how we use our office space, or how to improve learning & development programmes.

Supporting wellbeing

We have an annual calendar of wellbeing events focused on different topics each month, from financial wellbeing to men’s health to getting involved with a walking group. Our approach is to share knowledge, signpost people to relevant resources and to raise awareness and encourage discussion across the business. We have a number of active Affinity Groups including a Women’s Group, a Working Carers Group and a Menopause Support Group. We are proud to be committed to becoming a Menopause Friendly Employer. We also have Mental Health First Aiders across the firm and a corporate subscription to a leading wellbeing app that our people use in a whole range of ways.

Being part of a team

Think team is one of our core values and we invest in ensuring our teams connect socially away from work throughout the year. This includes an annual firm-wide summer party and Christmas celebrations. It also includes regular team away days, where we encourage teams to take part in volunteering activities, either in support of one of our firm charities, or a local charity that they would like to support. 

What our people say about Ashfords

Take a look at the results from our latest annual survey and discover what our people think of life at Ashfords.