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Could crisis be the catalyst for rebuilding trust?
Just like Facebook after its data scandal, social housing providers need to rebuild trust with customers. Geeta Nanda explains what she thinks the sector should do
Watching the World Cup, you couldn’t miss Facebook’s TV advertising campaign designed to win back the trust of customers after their recent fake news and personal data scandals.
This is crisis management on a large scale by a big business whose reputation has hit a wall.
Earlier in the year, it looked like it could be all over for this corporate giant. There were full-page adverts in national newspapers with a personal message from CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
In them, he referred to a “breach of trust” between the social network and its users; and he promised “to do better” for them.
Accepting responsibility when something has gone wrong – and taking action to put it right – marks the start of a slow and sometimes difficult journey to restoring the trust of customers and stakeholders.
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There are some echoes of the Facebook crisis in our own journey as housing providers.
For many years now, we have been under scrutiny and challenge in terms of our contribution at a time of acute housing shortage.
More recently, as a sector, we have been through a period of deep and sad reflection following the Grenfell Tower disaster.
We have quite rightly faced questions around governance, regulation and safety from journalists, politicians and, most importantly of all, from our customers, who naturally sought reassurance and support from us.
“We can only provide people with the safety net that they desperately need if we put them at the heart of everything we do.”
Housing associations were established to help those in housing need and to support some of the most vulnerable people in our society.
It is clear that we can only provide people with the safety net that they desperately need if we put them at the heart of everything we do – and constantly strive to do better for them.
Unlike Facebook customers, ours can’t simply log off if they’ve had enough of us. We own and manage the homes they live in.
So to build their trust in us, we have to communicate openly with them and fully engage with their communities.
At the same time, we must maintain a laser focus on fulfilling our social purpose which, in essence, is to make our customers’ lives better.
Although not on the same scale as Facebook, housing associations are big businesses, too – Metropolitan is equivalent in size to a FTSE 250 company. We have the scale and capacity to innovate like big businesses, and we employ thousands of people directly and through our supply chains.
“We must maintain a laser focus on fulfilling our social purpose.”
Recently, the US City of Seattle, facing rising homelessness, felt that big businesses, with offices in the city, should step up and pay a tax designed to tackle the problem. But it was dropped after argument, backlash and lobbying.
I was reminded of this when I saw the bold plan that charity Crisis has launched to end homelessness once and for all in this country. Crisis and the Homes for Cathy group of housing associations want to cement our role, and the roles of other agencies, in helping prevent homelessness.
The plan outlines a number of key ways in which housing associations can contribute, including:
- To not make homeless any tenant seeking to prevent their homelessness
- To contribute to ending migrant homelessness
- To operate flexible allocations and eligibility policies which allow individuals with unique sets of circumstances and housing histories to be considered
Perhaps listing all of the evidence-based solutions that can end homelessness, as the report does comprehensively, is what’s needed to create awareness of the current lack of a fully joined-up approach to solving the problem.
Thinking about Seattle made me realise how important it is that we have housing associations here and the important role we can play.
The delivery of improved social outcomes around homelessness, health, crime, employment and social care are what sets housing associations apart from other big businesses.
Yes, we have problems to solve and issues to resolve, but we already have most of the tools we need to make a difference – and that means that all of us should take the opportunity to support this plan.
“Improved social outcomes around homelessness, health, crime, employment and social care are what sets housing associations apart.”
Why wouldn’t we? After all, there’s no point talking about our social purpose if we cannot demonstrate our capacity to be social innovators and agents for positive change.
Housing associations might be the size of big businesses these days, but our bottom line is still our social purpose.
Our profits are a surplus we reinvest in our communities and our dividends are what we can do to make our customers lives better.
That’s why we don’t need a big advertising budget to rebuild trust – we just need to remember why we’re here and to deliver for our customers.
Geeta Nanda, chief executive, Metropolitan
