Talking shop

At 30-years-old, Inside Housing and the Chartered Institute of Housing’s 2012 Rising Stars competition winner Dean Slavin has a long career in housing ahead of him. As resident involvement manager at Parkway Green Housing Trust, he currently has his work cut out dealing with the impact of welfare reform on those living in the housing association’s 5,725 homes. One of Mr Slavin’s prizes for winning the Rising Stars competition is to edit an issue of Inside Housing. Given the forthcoming reforms and his expertise, it made sense for him to put his stamp on this, our annual residents special.

To achieve this, our guest editor gathered a group of his peers in The Metropolitan, a cosy pub in West Didsbury, Manchester, to discuss the challenges facing housing professionals, particularly around engaging with residents.

All of a similar age, the five members of this group met either through the CIH’s north west change network, a forum set up to enable housing providers to deliver and manage strategic change in their own organisations, or through an Institute of Leadership Management training course. Dedicated and ambitious, they are happy to spare a few hours setting the housing world to rights over a few drinks.

New strategies

Mr Slavin kicks off the conversation by recalling the argument he’s made in his leader for this magazine. ‘Since the Tenant Services Authority has gone, tenant involvement seems to have fallen further down the housing agenda. I think to have a good, successful, thriving business you need to involve tenants and allow them to shape your services,’ he states.

Sitting next to Mr Slavin is Phil McNamara, 34, a marketing and communications officer at First Ark - a group which includes 14,000-home Knowsley Housing Trust - who is sporting an impressive Movember moustache. He agrees that tenant involvement is as important as it ever was, but adds that it needs to be done more cleverly to both save money and to deliver a better service to residents.

‘Instead of using focus groups with the same people all the time, it’s about trying to reach those people you never normally talk to. It’s about going to where people are having conversations anyway and instead of telling them stuff, asking them questions,’ he says.

Welfare reform, starting with the introduction of the so-called ‘bedroom tax’ under which working-age tenants will be charged for having spare rooms from April onwards, is the most pressing concern for both them and their tenants, the group agrees. ‘We know it’s going to impact on the money we’re getting [as an organisation],’ sums up Rachel Gee, 33, insight and engagement manager at 11,000-home Contour Homes and 1,400-home Peak Valley Housing Association, both part of the Symphony Housing Group.

Since the TSA’s abolition in April, it’s been up to individual organisations to decide how they will interact with tenants, she says. The concern is that resident engagement now depends on the type of organisation you work for. Social landlords see lighter regulation as either an opportunity to do something better, or ‘as an opportunity to not do anything at all’, she adds.

Ms Gee’s team now has the freedom to prove its worth, she adds. In the past, resident involvement was perceived as ‘quite woolly’, she states. ‘It wasn’t the most strategic place to work - you went in there if you wanted to plod along. Now resident involvement has to demonstrate it’s making an impact,’ she says to knowing smiles.

Other teams within housing organisations have clear targets, and it is easy to see if they are doing well. ‘I think you have to work harder in resident engagement to prove your impact,’ states Ms Gee. ‘It’s exciting because you do have to be more professional and business focused.

‘Two years ago [my team’s] budget was around £150,000 for resident engagement and this year it’s just over £40,000, yet we’re delivering much more than we ever did before through things like customer journey mapping [tracking residents’ contact with their landlord].’

Everyone is in agreement that it’s all too easy for organisations to stick to the way they have always done things, and to conduct ‘tick-box exercises’. ‘[My team] now does things that have a high impact but a low cost. We’re targeting people who are experiencing our services,’ says Ms Gee. ‘With welfare reform, we’ve been able to contact those at risk.’

Building relationships

Hazel Waddington’s day job involves collecting rent from tenants. The 31-year-old, who works as neighbourhood services team leader at Eastlands Homes which owns 8,000 properties in east Manchester, says it can often be difficult to engage positively with tenants.

‘When you’re chasing people for rent, they don’t necessarily see that you’re there to support them and provide advice. They think it’s all about enforcement and it’s not until they actually engage with you that they realise you provide a full holistic service,’ she explains.

Ms Waddington already values the work of colleagues in resident involvement because they often enable her to connect with tenants, she explains. ‘I go to them with my objectives, the information I want to know, and they get it because they’ve already got that relationship with the individual.’

Helen Hawxwell, 30, employment and training manager at Affinity Sutton, says that for her team, engaging with residents is getting easier. ‘The service I manage in the north is our dedicated “ready to work” service. Previously it might have been more difficult to promote it, but with the looming changes we are getting higher referrals already and we’re developing a rapid response service for when April hits,’ she explains.

Bright outlook

All five of these thirty-somethings believe their working lives are about to change as government funding dries up and social landlords need to find new, more innovative ways to operate. ‘The sector is at a crossroads,’ states Mr McNamara.

Its new direction will be ‘about embedding private sector efficiency, but keeping the public sector ethos’, sums up Mr Slavin. ‘People who are business savvy will begin moving into the sector much more,’ he predicts. ‘I think it’s exciting, but people like us have to move with the times and make sure we’re as business savvy.’

For housing’s home-grown talent, encouragement from more senior employees is crucial. All five of the housing professionals here today say they owe a great deal to managers who have pushed them forwards.

Ms Waddington says the sector is doing something right, ‘When people move jobs, it’s within this industry. People stay in housing,’ she says.

It’s because the sector incorporates so many different types of roles, adds Mr McNamara. ‘At First Ark we’ve now got a commercial arm, so you can still get that social ethos, but also get commercial experience,’ he says.

Generally, a career in housing enables people to help others and ‘change lives’, but also to experience ‘the business side of things’, nods Ms Hawxwell. ‘It gives you everything you want. There are so many varied opportunities,’ she concludes. ‘I don’t know if any of you are going anywhere, but I don’t think I will.’