Thought leadership

We surveyed our residents in 2022 to gauge their overall wellbeing and to listen to their views on what our operating brand, Hello Student could do better to make the overall university experience more enriching and welcoming. To address their feedback, we spent 2023 rolling out a new wellbeing programme. 

Regular third-party surveys tell us that the quality and design of student accommodation, as well as the level of personal service provided to residents, has a marked impact on students’ overall wellbeing. Likewise, we know that the health and wellbeing of our customers is central to their satisfaction with their experience in our accommodation.

We always strive to provide space and support which enables our residents to feel their best, both physically and mentally, with extensive wellness amenities across our city clusters and 24/7 access to health and wellbeing support via our operating brand, Hello Student’s on-site support teams.

We recognise, however, that there’s always more to be done. We surveyed our residents in 2022 to gauge their overall wellbeing and to listen to their views on what we could do better to make the overall university experience more enriching and welcoming.

What we learned was that 46% of our residents said they struggled with stress and anxiety, and 26% with loneliness. While we know that these feelings are somewhat natural for young people moving to a new city and starting their higher education journey, we also recognise that our accommodation can play a huge role in helping residents meet new people, destress and adjust to university life.

That’s why we spent 2023 rolling out a new wellbeing programme to address this feedback.

We designed a new programme of events for our residents, aimed at bringing our customers together more frequently and building a stronger sense of community. With our high proportion of re-booking year-on-year, we also enlisted the help of current students to welcome new residents on the summer check-in day, building early relationships between students of different ages and establishing an informal support network to help new customers adapt to university life.

We also began a programme to further improve our amenity provision, offering more flexible space to facilitate social study and creating a more communal atmosphere in our accommodation.

Additionally, to reinforce our commitment to wellbeing across the business, we appointed a dedicated Wellbeing Manager last year to dial up mental health training for first aiders at all our sites.

The feedback we have received after the first year of this refreshed wellbeing programme has been extremely positive. Both current and new students reported that the new check-in process was fun and rewarding, while we’ve also seen significant qualitative improvements in our student wellbeing surveys:

The proportion of our residents who feel their accommodation team care about their wellbeing rose from 68% to 74%, and 76% said that their accommodation has an overall positive impact on their wellbeing, up from 64% in 2022 and above the 63% benchmark for all UK private halls of residence.

Crucially, students reporting a strong sense of community in our accommodation saw an incredible improvement from 37% to 63%, and the number of students struggling with stress and anxiety or loneliness also started to improve to 40% and 22%, down from 46% and 26% respectively the year before.

We also received Platinum Operator certification from Global Student Living, the highest accolade attainable, and improved our Net Promoter Score to +32, surpassing our target of +30 for the year and more than doubling the industry average.

Clearly, there’s still more work to be done, and our wellbeing programme is far from finished. We’re committed to continuing to fight against stress, anxiety and loneliness in our accommodation. The positive feedback received from the 2023 programme and our ongoing outperformance of the all-halls average in this space is hugely encouraging. We’re confident that our students will continue to feel material improvements to their health and wellbeing, as we further dial up our focus on our customer experience.

We are marking the official re-opening of Hello Student’s Brunswick House in Southampton, which took place on 26^th September 2024. The building has undergone a comprehensive transformation with 173 upgraded rooms, redefined layouts to the highest specifications and enhanced customer amenities.

As part of the transformation, ESP has converted a former retail unit into new amenity space, including a gym, private dining space, co-working facility and social lounge. It is the new Hello Student “hub” for our cluster of buildings in the city with communal facilities designed for all of our customers in Southampton to enjoy.

The project also supports our decarbonisation initiatives, featuring new Air Source Heat Pumps and primary plant, reconditioned PV panels, new energy efficient lighting and ventilation systems and in-room smart controls, making it easier for our customers to control heating and do their bit to reduce energy consumption.

The re-opening of Brunswick House marks the latest milestone in ESP’s ongoing refurbishment programme. To-date, we have invested c.£30 million in the refurbishment of standing stock, upgrading more than 800 rooms. We have earmarked a further 10 assets, representing 8% of our portfolio, for future refurbishment, with plans in place to upgrade over 500 beds during the 2025/26 academic year.

Our refurbishment programme, delivering higher quality accommodation as well as material improvements in the environmental impact of our portfolio, is one strand of our wider ESG strategy.

ESP intends to become net zero in our operations by 2033, with a wider target of being net zero in all our emissions (encompassing scope 3) no later than 2050. We are also committed to excelling in the provision of health and safety, enhancing mental health and wellbeing and providing opportunities for all.

We’ve made excellent strides in line with our ESG strategy over the past year.

We’ve installed over 2,500 smart panel heaters (including those at Brunswick House), providing more efficient energy consumption across the portfolio. We have completed LED upgrades at five sites with an additional 15 planned in the near future. We have 23 buildings where plans are in place to remove gas and integrate renewable energy solutions. An asset-by-asset building management system audit has also been completed across the entire portfolio, allowing a range of interventions to be modelled and implemented to tackle energy consumption.

We launched a well-received Energy Saving campaign over the summer to drive greater awareness across our internal teams of the importance of energy savings and shared best practice tips. The campaign included webinars, training, competitions and quizzes. In total over 300 team members took part. Following this, the first customer-focused energy awareness campaign will be launched next month packed with fun competitions and activities to help educate our customers on how they can save energy.

We have also introduced an apprenticeship scheme, Hello Future Stars programme and bespoke leadership programme this year to enhance our teams’ learning and development opportunities. By investing in our portfolio and our people, we strive to deliver an ever-improving experience for customers. So far this year, we have achieved our highest net promoter score of +37, over double the score for all private halls at +14. More than half (59%) of our eligible roles (exceeding entry level or specialist technical positions) were filled through internal progression in the year to June 2024, and we have achieved an employee retention and engagement rate of 82% and 78% respectively.

We’re focused on building on this progress in the years ahead.

By the end of 2025, over 40% of our portfolio by floor area is targeted to be fossil fuel-free, with a further 12 buildings converted to net zero in operations. Within two years, we expect to align our emissions targets to science based targets.

ESP is committed to delivering meaningful benefits for the environment and the communities in which we operate. Taking seriously our responsibilities to each other and the planet is core to our strategy and our people.

You can read more in our ESG report here: Reports | Empiric Student Property