Housing for All (HFA) case study

Transcription

1 Housing for All (HFA) case study Background Housing for All (HFA) is a not-for-profit organisation created in 2004 as a consequence of changes in government policy on the social provision of housing. According to its mission statement: Housing for All exists to work with tenants to provide homes that the people of Bush can be proud to live in. Almost all of the stock of 20, 000 housing properties were inherited from local government housing schemes. All are located in the City of Bush and most are concentrated in five large housing estates on the edge of the city. The quality of housing stock is variable - some are modern attractive houses or pleasant flats overlooking local parks; some are specialist units for old people with resident wardens. However some of the stock is concentrated in two large estates which have acquired unfortunate reputations for anti-social behaviour including vandalism and crime; here it is recognised that improved housing policy goes hand in hand with higher social aspirations for the poorer sections of the community. HFA has benefitted in recent years from government funding designed to improve substandard housing wherever it is situated and whether it is privately owned or rented. The continuation of such funding is far from certain and housing, particularly for the lower income groups in society, will always be a political topic which attracts media attention locally and nationally. Organisations like HRA are subject to continued scrutiny and are regulated and inspected by government agencies. Workforce and skills at HFA HFA employs some 600 staff. New housing build and acquisition has been limited in recent years, so there are only a small number of professionally qualified surveyors or building specialists employed by the organisation. Such professional services are bought in when required. Given high levels of unemployment locally, recruitment has not been a problem beyond very specialist skills (for example gas fitters). Indeed some staff have been become set in their ways and a higher turnover in some areas would be welcome. By far the biggest numbers of the workforce are designated housing officers or senior housing officers working in either people-facing or building-facing activities. The first category embraces rehousing, community engagement, dealing with anti-social behaviour. The second category embraces repairs and maintenance and some planning activity. Since almost all the HFA properties are rented there are significant numbers of staff involved in rent collection and debt and arrears management. HFA maintains a small contact centre where staff deal with telephone calls from residents on a wide range of topics. Almost the entire workforce use a PC in the course of their daily work. There are some 50 employees who spend most of their working day out on the estates undertaking or managing repairs, removing graffiti or improving the local environment in other ways. Microsoft office systems (Outlook for , Word, Excel) are in use throughout and there is a major housing database system (Housing Administrator) which contains information on both properties and tenants and is used widely across the organisation. The HFA permits some staff access to the Internet from their PCs but have strict policies on Internet abuse/time wasting at work. An HFA 1

2 Intranet was developed and launched last year but so far has been limited in its applications - it serves mainly as a directory for identifying and contacting other staff and a source of internal documents and procedures. The training database system, which records course attendance and individual training records, is a constituent module of a wider HR information system. Training to date The central training team, consisting of three staff, is responsible for delivering a range of shortcourse modules to staff around the organisation. These have been closely linked to the job functional technical requirements for the staff levels below middle management, with an emphasis on senior housing officers and housing officers (who are the front-line managers). Health and safety and correct working procedures are given priority. For example staff working in individual support must know procedures like the protection of the vulnerable, lone working, dealing with aggressive behaviour etc. In this area and others the consequences of not having the right staff, with the correct skills can be very serious. Therefore efforts have been made to identify the knowledge and skills deemed essential at all levels to perform basic job functions. As a result much of the training delivered was related to the processes surrounding the job role (delivering a repossession order, managing re housing requests, the steps in recovering housing arrears for example). The central training team can call on the services of specialist trainers in the various departments (for example estate management or debt recovery) to deliver these modules. Training needs are identified through two processes. There is an annual appraisal round when line managers interview their subordinates and give feedback on performance and identify development needs. The paper work is simple, but it is generally considered to be fit for purpose. The problem lies in patchy and uncertain standards of commitment and capability of the appraisers. A second source of training needs information is the ad hoc requests from managers to the central training unit. There is no competency framework in place in any of the departments, beyond extensive job descriptions. However the central training has, with considerable success following much effort, prepared a series of guides or templates on training needs of staff at all middle to lower levels. These have proved valuable in guiding the performance appraisal discussions. Recognising the need to develop wider skills beyond immediate technical competence last year an organisation-wide customer skills programme was held. This was a one day module delivered by an external consultancy aimed at first line managers. Based on immediate feedback this was deemed to be successful. However after reflection it was felt that there was too much emphasis on immediate behaviour (smiling nicely and listening) rather finding what the customer wants and removing impediments by challenging business processes. Percy Nicholls, the Head of Learning and Organisational Development at HFA indicated in an interview for this project his desire to have an effective competency framework in place. In his view this could be used for assessment centres for new staff, performance appraisal, identifying needs for succession planning and, in the long term, building a framework for competency related pay. 2

3 Skills needs in the future An interview was held last month with Edwina Morgan, the Chief Executive of HFA, to scope out the requirements for advice and support. In the interview Edwina Morgan articulated a clear view that there was a need for development initiatives to support cultural change within HFA. Traditionally staff had been task-orientated and had been promoted because of technical competency. So, a senior housing officer would be a housing officer who had been around longer and was better at the job (more efficient at managing repairs for example). One of her main concerns is the consistency of delivery of services. There are four local offices and these all have clear performance targets and dashboard reporting (repairs, rents, standards of voids (empty properties), budgets, speed and handling of complains). Reporting mechanisms are in place but standards vary. 60% of the calls to the contact centre concern repairs and 20% of total calls are waste calls where the problem should not have arisen or been dealt with at an earlier stage. In Edwina Morgan s view there is now a requirement for a shift in management style at all levels. There may be too many managers in place in a top heavy structure. In addition some managers may simply not be doing their job effectively. In her view there is a need to move from a command and control culture to an empowerment culture. At a recent away day the half dozen most senior managers had agreed there was a need to move to a coaching culture. If not capable junior staff would leave the organisation. Already these capable junior staff were registering complaints about lack of development opportunities. In addition there were real problems with more senior managers who had been promoted internally without any effective management training - subjects where they were untrained included project management, managing budgets as well as the people skills of giving feedback, and managing poor performers. Edwina Morgan said that there was also a need to offer management leadership development for the most senior team. There was a good measure of agreement in where they wanted to be: they wanted to adopt a more collegiate approach with greater team-working to become better people managers and more customer focused. However beyond a request from some of the most senior team for individual coaching support (from an external consultant) there was little agreement on how to do it and on the next steps. The HR away day Six weeks ago the HR team under Percy Nicholls held an away day and produced the following list of actions that they felt could be used to build a more effective learning culture at HFA. These are taken from the flip charts produced on the day. No attempt has been made to analyse or prioritise this list. Introduce co-ordinated senior management development/leadership development (for the very top team) Introduce management training for the middle and first line managers Plan and deliver a coaching/feedback initiative linked to the performance appraisal system Create and disseminate a transparent and open competency framework Develop the system to support training an effective intranet portal? A learning portal? Introduce some e-learning? 3

4 Prepare and communicate an explicit training strategy or plan for the organisation seek involvement of senior managers Develop a succession planning or talent management system Next steps Following the senior management discussions and HR away day Edwina Morgan has secured a sum of for consulting support to Take HFA to the next stage in learning, training and development. She has requested a submission presentation from interested consultants. She has indicated that she wishes the consultants to work with and through the existing training team and wants visible evidence of progress not another report telling us what we haven t done and need to do. 4

5 Some extracts from the HFA Annual Report From the Chair s statement The framework and constraints in which we operate may change, but we are sure that social housing will continue to grow in importance. Our core business is social housing which we regard as a fundamental to the future of our City. We remain committed to work with tenants to provide homes that the people of Bush can be proud to live in, but the type of interventions and processes to achieve this aim will change. Our core business is social housing and we seek to create neighbourhoods of choice. This demands a move to mixed tenure estates which require large developments. We would welcome a relaxation of government constraints on our freedom of action. In particular we would like the flexibility to build for sale and for new forms of shared equity schemes and to operate in a wider geographical area. HFA will face considerable organisational and funding challenges and we must be equipped to respond to the requirements of an uncertain future. From the Chief Executive s statement Given the changing environment in social housing, the development of organisational capability is now one of our highest priorities. Staff at all levels must have the knowledge and skills to deliver a quality service in a cost-effective way across an ever-widening range of housing services. We must be ready to enter new markets and meet more demanding delivery targets One of the challenges that we will face is the fuller integration of technology systems in our work. Almost our entire workforce use a PC in the course of their work. We see enhanced technology as a key driver in better customer service and improved productivity. Last year we undertook a pilot experiment in the use of hand-held personal digital assistants (PDAs). This allowed estate-based housing officers to input information on repairs directly on site. Such approaches will require considerable future investment in systems but represent a promising way forward. From the statistical appendix Turnover 60 million p.a. Repairs and maintenance expenditure 23 million p.a properties Resident satisfaction 85% 600 staff; 50 on estates; 4 area offices Staff turnover 6% Average days sickness absence per employee 12 5