Put to the test
This year’s Rising Stars competition asked all entrants to explain how they would promote a career in housing to school leavers. Now the three finalists pitch their ideas for real. Lydia Stockdale reports
‘The nerves are starting to kick in a little bit now.’ This is Peter Bond, tenancy management officer at Sanctuary Housing’s reaction when he begins his presentation to members of Family Mosaic’s Youth Academy.
When Peter, 33, and his two fellow Rising Stars finalists entered this year’s competition to find the most talented up-and-coming people in the housing sector, they submitted 500 words on how they would promote housing as a career to 16 to 18-year-olds.
Their ideas were good enough to get them through to the final stages of Inside Housing and the Chartered Institute of Housing’s contest - but would they actually make an impact on school leavers?
To find out, we put Catherine Attenborough, 36, a senior business improvement consultant for Catalyst Housing in Ealing; Sarah Morton, 23, a graduate employment mentoring officer at South Yorkshire Housing Association, and Peter in front of a focus group of nine young people.
Housing association Family Mosaic’s Youth Academy - which won the Tenant Participation Advisory Service’s national award for Excellence in Youth Involvement last year - gathered in a London board room to see our finalists present their campaign ideas, and to give feedback on whether they would encourage them and their peers to consider housing as a potential career. Some sat with their pens poised, ready to note down the questions they wanted to put to the Rising Stars finalists after their presentations.
First up was Catherine, who focused on engaging young people through social media and housing-based experiences. Her lively presentation ended with a social media-based quiz with chocolates as prizes. Next up was Peter who, after admitting his nerves were a bit on edge, went on to give a clear and concise presentation, focusing on how housing employers could offer a different set of benefits tailored to the needs of younger recruits. And last but not least, Sarah, who took a participatory approach, invited feedback from the audience to incorporate into her campaign. She announced that her employer SYHA is already trialling one of her web-based recruitment ideas.
Here are some excerpts from their presentations, followed by an account of the question and answer session, which included some surprise feedback from audience members about how to engage young people.
The winner of this year’s Rising Stars competition will be announced at the Welcome to Manchester dinner, incorporating the Housing Heroes Awards, on 24 June during the CIH’s annual conference in Manchester.
Find out more about the competition and vote for your favourite on our Rising Stars page
Sarah Morton
Campaign: The Schools Partnership
‘For my campaign I looked at the marketing idea of talking about why you do something, not what you do. If someone comes up to you and says: “I work in social housing and we collect rent and do voids,” and gets technical on you, it’s not very interesting. But if somebody talks to you about why they do something, and says: “I’m really passionate about communities,” it’s really powerful. Social housing is really good because there’s a lot of why behind it.
‘I’m going to use generic careers websites to engage people who do not really know what they want to do. Then, for people who are interested in a career in housing, I’m going to develop an interactive website, where there will be information about roles, opportunities, and people talking about their values - about why they’re in social housing.
‘There will also be a careers finder app called App-ly 4 jobs, which I’ve been developing, and this is going live on South Yorkshire Housing Association’s website at the end of June. Here, you answer a series of questions, such as: Why do you get out of bed in the morning? Do you like to work in a team or not? What are your skills? Once you’ve answered the questions, a tailored video will come up about your perfect role in housing.
‘The next part of my campaign is to visit schools and hold housing careers days.
‘There are lots of good reasons why schools should engage with social housing providers, one of them being because there is an emphasis on volunteering in the new citizenship curriculum. This will get people the experience that really galvanises their interests. The focus is going to be on values.’
Peter Bond
Campaign: Building Bridges
‘For me, housing is a fantastic career. The ability to help people on a daily basis and to improve people’s lives, it really is a privilege. But the sad thing is most people aren’t aware of housing as a career when they make those choices at the age of 16 to 18.
‘Housing organisations are supposed to be businesses with a social purpose, but I don’t think they do enough to prioritise what young people want and need.
‘It’s not a case of apprentices or fixed-term contracts; we want full-time, permanent jobs. It’s about a long-term commitment between employee and employer with an emphasis on real skills and careers.
‘Through my campaign a young person would choose between a standard employee rewards package or a Building Bridges package, the difference being that, under the latter, they wouldn’t get a pension for the first three years of employment, and they wouldn’t get private medical care, but instead they would get key things to help them on life’s journey.
‘The money would be used to put towards things that are more applicable to young people. As standard, young people would get intensive mentoring for career, education and life, and they’d also receive educational support, not just vocational support, but help with book grants, study leave and university tuition fees.
‘If the young person performs well during the first year of employment, they’d be offered an incentive - either the latest smart phone or tablet device. At the end of year two, we’d offer the young person driving lessons paid for by the organisation. At the end of year three, we’d offer them lump-sum contributions towards a first car, maybe, or living independently.’
Catherine Attenborough
Campaign: Hashtag Housing
‘I’m here to tell you how I’m going to get you to absolutely love the idea of working in housing so much you’re going to tell your friends about it and they’re going to tell their friends.
‘I’m drawing on a model that marketers call peer-to-peer. It’s basically how a recommendation from a young person to another young person is probably the most influential recommendation you’ll ever come across. It’s far more influential than a recommendation - and you can tell me if I’m wrong here - from your mother, teacher, even a celebrity on TV.
‘My campaign to recruit young people into the housing sector involves young people being offered housing experiences by housing providers. For example, you could come in and support a marketing event, you could take photos, update the Hashtag Housing Facebook page, you could help out with an estate inspection or maybe a residents’ fund day. There will be a menu of experiences on the Hashtag Housing website that you would be able to contact housing associations directly to sign up for.
‘Afterwards, you will then upload your happy housing experiences onto the Hashtag Housing website, and this acts as a recommendation to other young people. They look at it and they see others had a good time, and the idea is that it snowballs like that and gets people interested in a career in housing.
‘I asked some of our apprentices at Catalyst Housing about how to engage young people, and they told me that it’s really important that the experiences are participative, social, varied, creative and informal.
‘People like me need your help with social media. You have grown up in this digital world. For you, using social media is like breathing.’
Discussion points
Miriam Owusu, 17, makes notes throughout the presentations in order to quiz the three finalists later on
Miriam Owusu, 17: ‘Sarah, you said you’re recruiting people based on values - can you elaborate on that?’
Sarah: ‘I want to recruit people who are motivated to make a difference to their community, so they want to go into social housing because they want to improve people’s lives. They want to be involved in community projects, engaging people.’
Josh Pavett, 19: ‘Catherine, I spend roughly two or three hours a day on Facebook, but engaging young people shouldn’t all be down to social media. Posters in the street get the point across. When I use public transport, there’s always that one poster that I sit there staring at.’
Nadir Abdullahi, 16: ‘Not everyone can afford to have the internet.’
Miriam: ‘I’m not on Facebook, I’m not on Twitter, so would I be excluded from your campaign?’
Catherine: ‘I should probably clarify that the focus of my campaign is around the website, but I do appreciate that not everybody is digitally enabled. But you’re right, my focus is on the digital element, because it is probably the approach that gets you the best value for money if you’re trying to get the broadest reach as a business. I’m really intrigued that you guys still put some faith in print. It’s been really eye-opening for me, so I would need to think about how I would broaden my promotional campaign.’
Reg Amoah, Youth Academy team leader, Family Mosaic: ‘Most of the young people are here because of word of mouth. As well as using social media, we try to get out there and tell people what we do, so we have a street team that will go out and canvas, and get feedback about what young people want. It’s more expensive than social media, as you have to pay people for their time, but from what I’ve seen, it’s the most effective way.’
Sarah: ‘I’m really interested to hear about your canvassing idea. I’d never have thought about that.’
Miriam: ‘Peter, you talked about giving people driving lessons - that’s really expensive, do you think the funding for that will be guaranteed?’
Peter: ‘I probably didn’t elaborate on this enough. Basically, with a pension scheme, an employer has to put in money as well as the employee, and with a final salary pension scheme, that most social housing providers currently have, the contributions in terms of what an employer puts in is quite a lot of money. I’d use money that was saved from private medical cover, and I’d also try to get some subsidy from central government in terms of what they already give to run apprenticeships, and I’d put it all into one big pot [for things like driving lessons or a contribution towards a car].’
Josh: ‘I’ve always wanted to get into housing, but when I look at job advertisements the one big thing that puts me off, is the line: ‘must have a driver’s licence’. I can’t afford to run a car.’
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