Our Values
Halo Code
Fat Macy's has adopted the Halo Code!
Fat Macy’s champions the right of of our trainees and graduates to embrace all Afro-hairstyles. We acknowledge that Afro-textured hair is an important part of our Black trainees and employees' racial, ethnic, cultural, and religious identities, and requires specific styling for hair health and maintenance. We celebrate Afro-textured hair worn in all styles.
Fat Macy’s Values
These are our guiding principles that we apply to everything we do as an organisation, whether it’s working with trainees, colleagues or our partners.
We strive for equity
Every person has different life experiences and access to opportunities. We recognise this imbalance as a team, both in wider society and in our organisation. Striving for equity means ensuring that extra support is given to those who have been under-supported in the past, and welcoming people as equals no matter their role, area of work, or background.
We focus on strengths
We focus on an individual’s and our organisation’s strengths. When working with team members and trainees, we look for abilities, talents, resources and resilience that can be harnessed for personal development. In particular we help trainees to find and use often overlooked strengths to address challenges they face. As an organisation we support everyone to grow by building on their capabilities.
We cultivate empathy
Empathy plays a central role not just in supporting trainees but in how we work as a team. We try to put ourselves in other people’s shoes to make better decisions and build better relationships both at work and in life. We seek to understand how others feel in difficult situations and be mindful of the added pressures and struggles others may face. Cultivating empathy doesn’t mean we shy away from hard conversations. We give fair and honest feedback when it’s required, but always deliver it with the other person’s feelings in mind.
We empower others
We believe that a key part of motivation is having agency. In the team we strive for a culture of trust and encourage people to act autonomously, with appropriate support and direction, to meet the goals of the organisation. With trainees, we empower them to take charge of their future, career and tenancy so they can create positive change for themselves. Anyone in the organisation can have a say in how Fat Macy’s operates.
We’re continually improving
We are constantly learning as a team and we use data and experience to guide our business and programme decisions. We regularly reflect on what works and what doesn’t, rather than following the status quo. We use our size to our advantage to stay nimble and adapt quickly. When the evidence supports it, we’re not afraid to make bold, decisive changes in order to do better for our trainees, as a charity and as a business.
The Fat Macy’s Approach
Three practical principles underpin how we work with trainees. From our chefs to our progression team, to the way we do outreach, these principles guide us in offering consistent, effective and empathetic support.
We hold space for trainees
At the centre of our work is listening without judgement. We are there to create an empathetic space for trainees, and to hear and understand them. We are mindful not to impose our own ideas of what individual success looks like on those we work with – our role is to guide and support, not to prescribe.
We know that people are experts in themselves
No two experiences of homelessness are the same. Each person is unique and every situation is different. We work with trainees on their personal journeys, no matter what their goals and aspirations. We believe people are experts in themselves, so we ask them how they want to work, tailoring our approach. We put the person first.
We support trainees as a team
Supporting a trainee is bigger than any one person’s role. Our programme works best when our whole team helps someone on their journey. We are collectively responsible for helping trainees to thrive and we harness the diverse skills, passion and expertise across the team and our wider community to do so. Together, we are creating a positive working environment and building a diverse support network to enable trainees to get to where they want to be.