We must keep asking ourselves if we are listening to residents enough

Our years of developing Optivo’s approach to involvement have taught me that there are two fundamental challenges for housing associations. First, we need to have a culture in which staff and board members see residents as our equals in the work we do. Second, we need to have the right leadership so that board members and senior staff champion residents’ involvement in the decisions they’re making.

Organisations must have the right structures in place too, but the most extensive involvement structures won’t reshape the relationship between landlord and tenant if there’s no culture of listening or senior leaders aren’t really interested.

“All relationships need constant work and ongoing commitment. The relationship between landlord and tenant is no different”

I’m really proud of the progress we’ve made at Optivo. Our board champions resident engagement and residents attend the meetings. Our senior staff challenge their teams to involve tenants and shared owners in major decisions. And our structure sees our residents involved in making a whole range of decisions, from sitting on procurement panels to holding regional repairs staff to account for performance, and shaping our policies and strategies.

But I want to go further. All relationships need constant work and ongoing commitment. The relationship between landlord and tenant is no different.

Although Optivo has got one of the sector’s most extensive approaches to involvement, we’re going to take a fresh look at what we do. Recently merged organisations need to look at their cultures. New staff need to feel genuine ownership and investment in our involvement approach, so I will be going round the organisation to speak to staff to hear their thoughts.

We house new residents every day – when they come to us for the first time, I want to understand how they feel our relationship with them works and what we could do differently.

But while we have an extensive structure of involvement, I know that few residents want to shape what we do by turning up to meetings. So we’ve launched a project to explore digital tools that would allow busy residents juggling multiple responsibilities to have their say in a flexible way that suits them.

“As my two-year term as chair of the G15 comes to an end, I’m really excited about launching this new chapter in Optivo’s journey”

Fundamentally, I want to work with our board, staff and residents to experiment with different ways of opening up the organisation to more unified way of working.

We’ll be clear that there are no wrong answers – we’ll try things out, see whether or not they work and then try other options. It’s a recognition that however strong your approach to involvement, staff and residents are changing all the time so the way to involve people must keep changing, too. It’s a recognition that we don’t presume to have all the answers – involvement needs to be an ongoing co-creation.

As my two-year term as chair of the G15 comes to an end, I’m really excited about launching this new chapter in Optivo’s journey. And I’m looking forward to working with our residents, staff, board members and the wider sector to discover what the future may hold for resident involvement.

Paul Hackett, chief executive, Optivo; chair, G15

• Mr Hackett is speaking in a session about resident involvement at Housing 2019, Thursday, 9.30am, Charter Three