Find your team

Every day is different at Guide Dogs. We work side by side, on our sites and in the community, in schools and on our streets, supporting people with sight loss to live the life they choose.

Guide Dogs behaviours

We simply wouldn’t be able to do this without our people; our dogs may be our icons, but our people are our heroes. We've tried to capture the essence of what it is to be Guide Dogs PEOPLE in our behaviours. They reflect who we are and who we aspire to be.

Two Guide Dogs employees, each with a Guide Dog, walk down a corridor

PEOPLE:

Person-centred

We’re a group of people working to help each person affected by sight loss. We listen and recognise that every individual is different in where they’ve come from and where they’re going. We're open, empathetic and inclusive. We place the person at the centre of every decision.

Expert

We're specialists in what we do. We're committed to excellence and will never stop innovating. We respect our history, but seek out ways to adapt and improve, and are always willing to learn.

Optimistic

We're relentless in our belief that people with vision impairment can lead the life they choose. We're passionate about helping each person, committed to challenging barriers, and proud of who we are and what we achieve.

So, we:

Partner

We can only change lives when we collaborate. We build valued relationships with donors. We work together with our service users and colleagues, volunteers and partners – and our dogs, of course – to deliver great outcomes. We support and develop each other.

Lead-by-example

We can all be a guide. We take the lead and then hand it over, empowering people to make progress independently. We gain trust by having faith in others, and influence by example. We do what we say we will.

Engage

We cannot change lives if we look on from the side-lines. We get involved, take ownership and feel responsible for all we do, think, and say. We celebrate wins, big and small, and we hold ourselves and each other to account.

Download our PEOPLE behaviours booklet

Our behaviours (pdf 77.66 KB)

Together, we are Guide Dogs

We’re all here to help people with sight loss live the life they choose, but we each have different ways of making it happen. Find out more about our different directorates, and how they all play important roles in the creation and delivery of our life-changing services.

View of a busy office with people working at their desks

Alongside our CEO, the Association Secretary and the Secretariat Team make up this Directorate. We may be a small Directorate, but we're crucial to keeping Guide Dogs running.

We are the conduit between Guide Dogs Board of Trustees and our staff. We enable the definition of our Organisational priorities and strategy. We work hard making sure that Guide Dogs runs smoothly by managing the governance of the organisation and coordinating all meetings of our Board of Trustees and our Executive Board.
If you know Guide Dogs, you probably know a bit about our Operations team. We're on the ground, delivering our life changing services. We’re the Guide Dog Trainers, Guide Dogs Mobility Specialists and expert Dog Care Teams behind our iconic guide dog partnerships. We are also the Habilitation Specialists helping children with a vision impairment to develop and flourish in the world, and the Vision Rehabilitation Specialists who help adults with sight loss to live actively, independently and well.

We are also the people behind these front-line staff, working in our community teams, regional centres and Guide Dogs National Centre, helping to make sure our services, advice and support help people with sight loss live the life they choose.
We’re not your average Finance & Business Directorate. At Guide Dogs, we’re encouraged to be curious and creative. To go out into the business, get to know what our colleagues do and what they need, then use our skills to make things work better.

We can help a Fundraising Manager calculate the return on a successful campaign, suggest the cross-team collaboration that'll save you budget, or whip up the Excel sheet that will save you half a day’s head scratching. We make sure that our buildings are accessible for people with visual impairments and practical for dogs in training.

The way we see it, our Guide Dog Trainers and Guide Dog Mobility Specialists, our Volunteer Managers and Canine Researchers can’t have the impact they do without the insight we provide. They’re here to support people with sight loss, and we’re here to support them.
Helping people with sight loss live the life they choose. This is why we’re all here. But we each have different ways of making it happen. At Guide Dogs, we’re working hard to create a culture where everyone can find their passion, express their personality and use their skill. Where they can contribute the quality that sets them apart to the cause that brings us all together. The People Directorate are here to live and lead that culture.

When you join Guide Dogs, we’re the first to welcome you, and from then on, we’re never far away. We can help you find the skills to move into a new role or find your feet after some time away. We can show you the right policy, process, procedure – and help you find words that aren’t in any guidelines to tell a colleague exactly what they need to hear. We know that when you feel valued, supported and safe, you can get on with doing the things that make a real difference to everyone affected by sight loss.
Used smartly, technology can change everything. It can free up precious time, money and resources. It makes our services more agile and responsive. It helps us create a better experience for our staff and volunteers, for the people we support and who support us. We're here to help Guide Dogs harness this potential, but we’re responsible for quite a few other things too.

We design, deliver and support the systems that all our colleagues use and rely on. We help colleagues use every day platforms like Teams and Outlook to ensure operations runs smoothly. And of course, we keep all the lights and laptops on, and servers humming away happily.

That’s the vital day-to-day. But the exciting bit is what we can do tomorrow – how we can harness technology and data to help shape the future of Guide Dogs.
We’re here to show the world the life-changing work that Guide Dogs does. This is a great privilege, but it’s also a massive responsibility. It’s up to us to reach the thousands across the country who are living with a vision impairment. To be the voice of Guide Dogs in society, changing the way people think about sight loss, and inspiring them to support our work.

It might be by our Legacy Giving Team showing someone the amazing things they could help us do with a gift in their Will, or our Community Fundraisers giving our volunteers the insight and the confidence to put on a memorable local event. It could be our skills in digital and social media, marketing and insight, comms and design creating content that will showcase our amazing work. Or maybe it’s a national campaign that changes government policy for the whole country.

However we reach people, it’s making that connection to what matters most. Showing the impact and importance of our work to people in a way that means something to them. Letting someone know they’re not alone. Showing people how they can be a part of the incredible work we do – and how grateful we are for their support.

The best bit is knowing what we’re creating will make a difference to people’s lives.
In the Transformation Directorate we're helping the Guide Dogs of tomorrow by planning how we can achieve our strategy. We work closely with teams across the organisation to optimise, innovate and develop our processes and ways of working. We champion consistent project and programme management practices, which will help the organisation fulfil its mission and strategic goals by running the right projects and programmes, in the right order, the right way and with the right resources. Efficiency, problem solving, and continuous improvements are our specialty, to ensure that Guide Dogs will continue to offer our life changing services, and maximise every pound donated to us.

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