Nurturing success

To achieve our objective of making a difference to tenants’ lives, nobody plays a bigger role than our employees.

It is their proactive approach, customer friendly attitude and sheer initiative that represents us as an organisation and determines our reputation.

We invest heavily in our staff, making sure we have the right people and teams in every service area and we are reaping the rewards.

Our annual Employment Engagement survey shows how much our employees appreciate this investment. Over 86% of staff felt they contributed directly to our success and 94% said we help with their career development. This goes a long way to explaining our excellent staff retention rates of over 90%.

These figures have been strengthened by our Recruit and Manage for Attitude programmes. With an exceptional career in management behind her, Rachel Chudley, SSHA’s Head of Housing, came through both programmes with flying colours. She explained what attracted her to the organisation, “I liked the fact that Housing Plus was very business orientated and that it had seized the initiative over setting up a group structure. It clearly has ambitions. The commitment to improving peoples' lives is obvious and when asked, many people said they are most proud of the strong customer service ethos. That was great to hear as a new manager.
The Recruit for Attitude helped me most by preparing me for the challenges within the role and gave a good idea about the kind of organisation I was joining. Recruitment’s a two-way decision and I was very clear about the kind of place I was being interviewed by! Since then, I’ve been impressed by how strategically the directors think (and are making me think). As the housing sector enters a new phase, it feels good to be working for an organisation that’s on the front foot.”

Sam Taylor is one of our home-grown talents who is flourishing in her new role as SSHA’s Neighbourhood Services Team Leader. The investment we made in Sam’s career is already paying dividends. By helping us cut voids times by 33% Samantha’s foresight is not only saving money, it is also providing an even better service for our customers.

This investment in people spans across our entire group. Mark Poole started with us 21 years ago working as an operative from our Penkridge Depot. Now our Responsive Repairs Team Leader, Mark was a great success story from our Management Development Programme, first introduced at Property Care. Mark explained, “We worked on communication skills and now I can stand up at regular management meetings and have presented to up to 70 colleagues. It’s really given me the confidence to deliver business presentations, which was daunting at first, but it gets easier and it’s a huge part of my role now. It also helped improve the way I talk to my team and get them to embrace what we need to achieve. It breeds respect and it shows.”

We are proud to say that thanks to Mark and his great colleagues, Property Care has had its most successful year to date