Over the last month I have been listening to staff about the ways in which Wolverhampton Homes can further improve its services to tenants. Everyone of our 711 colleagues has joined me in debating key issues facing us as a social landlord - ranging from how we avoid complaints to how we and our tenants can become greener. Throughout the sessions I tried to talk a lot less and listen a lot more - not easy for me.
But thank goodness I did! I have never come across a better way to get real staff engagement. We used to think that a staff survey every year or two would take the collective temperature of the workforce and we would get happier teams from making one or two minor changes about working life. Actually, the things that frustrate staff are the same things that frustrate tenants!
It's when one section won't talk to another, when a policy is grey rather than crystal clear, when there is corporate inconsistency or when a process is carried out that is a complete waste of time. I have now got over a thousand comments or suggestions from the people who really know what's going on - the feasibility of which I am already considering. Almost none of the suggestions had anything to do with traditional terms and conditions but everything to do with the quality of life for tenants and taking the business forward.
To be honest, I couldn't have got a better set of proposals if I had got the most senior and high powered housing professionals in a room for a whole weekend! I am very pleased I have harnessed the power of the 711.
Friday, 19 August 2011
Wednesday, 3 August 2011
A friendship to last a lifetime
On an uncharacteristically muggy evening last Thursday, nearly 30 of our youngest tenants met my colleagues and I to begin what I hope will be a long friendship.
As anyone who works in housing knows, it is mightily difficult to encourage our younger residents to have their voice heard on housing issues. We are all too familiar with the usual suspects of tenant involvement - immensely valuable though they are, but they tend to be white, 60 or 70 something and have been a tenant for some 30 years. We wanted to make a special effort to get views from newer, younger people who may have a perspective we are missing. This is not about replacing one set of tenant views with another but about getting a range of views.
Two of our Future Jobs Fund employees put an enormous amount of energy and creativity into recruiting them and I was pleased to see the room so busy. I met some people who I immediately thought of as tenant board members of tomorrow, brimming with ideas and the enthusiasm of youth. One young woman, Kelly, particularly impressed me. She had thought up some really challenging questions for me and had some innovative ideas of her own.
It turned out we had both only been in Wolverhampton a few years but had immediately fallen in love with the people and the general laid back feel of the city. As a single parent with a baby (but engaged to her son's father, getting married next year), Kelly felt older people on her estate looked down on her and made quite wrong assumptions about her behaviour and lifestyle. In fact, she and a girl friend spend a lot of time chewing the fat about what makes a good community and what they might do to help.
She asked me if Wolverhampton Homes would perhaps train up people like her to work with younger people as she already wanted to put something back into the community. I have already put it on my list as something to explore and discussed it with the head of our Local Neighbourhood Partnership which also wants to harness the potential of volunteers.
Not satisfied with asking me difficult stuff like which person living or dead would I most like to meet (!) - I said Mr Blair on the basis that I still want to know why we went to war - Kelly particularly wanted to know what we are doing to engage 7-16 year olds in council housing. Like many ALMOs we have a range of really exciting projects that we support for example the Timken social enterprise or Goalz (a project with Wolverhampton Wanderers Football Club) but is this really engagement? If I am honest, it’s about trying to prevent antisocial behaviour and control the kids during the holidays!
We have been struck by the lack of basic life skills amongst our youngsters - managing money, dealing with applications/benefits, cooking, managing a home or garden, dealing pleasantly with neighbours and so on. So for our first young tenants get together we focussed on managing money, particularly how to borrow money sensibly and avoid loan sharks.
Shock tactics worked well here. We showed a video of a young man talking about his l6 years (yes!) of indebtedness to an unauthorised lender who drove him almost to the point of suicide.
I was hugely impressed by how keen the young tenants were to make a difference in their area and learn new skills which they will take with them for life. We can learn so much from them and I look forward to seeing our friendship develop over the years to come.
You can see some more photos of our young Get Together on our facebook page (and we'd love it if you liked us while you were there too!).
As anyone who works in housing knows, it is mightily difficult to encourage our younger residents to have their voice heard on housing issues. We are all too familiar with the usual suspects of tenant involvement - immensely valuable though they are, but they tend to be white, 60 or 70 something and have been a tenant for some 30 years. We wanted to make a special effort to get views from newer, younger people who may have a perspective we are missing. This is not about replacing one set of tenant views with another but about getting a range of views.
Two of our Future Jobs Fund employees put an enormous amount of energy and creativity into recruiting them and I was pleased to see the room so busy. I met some people who I immediately thought of as tenant board members of tomorrow, brimming with ideas and the enthusiasm of youth. One young woman, Kelly, particularly impressed me. She had thought up some really challenging questions for me and had some innovative ideas of her own.
It turned out we had both only been in Wolverhampton a few years but had immediately fallen in love with the people and the general laid back feel of the city. As a single parent with a baby (but engaged to her son's father, getting married next year), Kelly felt older people on her estate looked down on her and made quite wrong assumptions about her behaviour and lifestyle. In fact, she and a girl friend spend a lot of time chewing the fat about what makes a good community and what they might do to help.
She asked me if Wolverhampton Homes would perhaps train up people like her to work with younger people as she already wanted to put something back into the community. I have already put it on my list as something to explore and discussed it with the head of our Local Neighbourhood Partnership which also wants to harness the potential of volunteers.
Not satisfied with asking me difficult stuff like which person living or dead would I most like to meet (!) - I said Mr Blair on the basis that I still want to know why we went to war - Kelly particularly wanted to know what we are doing to engage 7-16 year olds in council housing. Like many ALMOs we have a range of really exciting projects that we support for example the Timken social enterprise or Goalz (a project with Wolverhampton Wanderers Football Club) but is this really engagement? If I am honest, it’s about trying to prevent antisocial behaviour and control the kids during the holidays!
We have been struck by the lack of basic life skills amongst our youngsters - managing money, dealing with applications/benefits, cooking, managing a home or garden, dealing pleasantly with neighbours and so on. So for our first young tenants get together we focussed on managing money, particularly how to borrow money sensibly and avoid loan sharks.
Shock tactics worked well here. We showed a video of a young man talking about his l6 years (yes!) of indebtedness to an unauthorised lender who drove him almost to the point of suicide.
I was hugely impressed by how keen the young tenants were to make a difference in their area and learn new skills which they will take with them for life. We can learn so much from them and I look forward to seeing our friendship develop over the years to come.
You can see some more photos of our young Get Together on our facebook page (and we'd love it if you liked us while you were there too!).
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