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April 18, 2012

Yes changes everything

Despite stock transfers to community controlled housing associations, Glasgow Housing Association remains one of the UK’s largest landlords (45,000 tenants).  Often criticised for being remote and unresponsive to its tenants, GHA is clearly trying to change. A simple but radical idea has been trialled in four area offices.  Frontline staff have been actively encouraged to respond with a YES (rather than NO) to any queries from tenants. Each member of staff is empowered with a small personal budget. The impact has been transformational.

18/4/12

Despite stock transfers to community controlled housing associations, Glasgow Housing Association remains one of the UK’s largest landlords (45,000 tenants).  Often criticised for being remote and unresponsive to its tenants, GHA is clearly trying to change. A simple but radical idea has been trialled in four area offices.  Frontline staff have been actively encouraged to respond with a YES (rather than NO) to any queries from tenants. Each member of staff is empowered with a small personal budget. The impact has been transformational.

GHA is one of the UK’s largest Housing Associations.  It currently owns and manages 45,000 domestic properties and provides a factoring service for a further 24,000 customers.   

Over the past 3 years the organisation witnessed a significant improvement in its performance  involving statutory performance indicators; employee satisfaction levels and customer satisfaction levels – with customer satisfaction levels of between 80% and 83% being recorded.  However by 2011, the trend in improving customer satisfaction was slowing and disparity was seen in satisfaction levels in its customer groupings with  both the 16-44 age group and also BME tenants less satisfied than its older tenant base.  This was despite considerable effort on the organisation’s part using a range of tried and tested training and induction methods to train staff and key suppliers to adopt a customer perspective and act accordingly. 

Between July and October 2011 a ground breaking initiative was undertaken by the GHA to generate a step change in the mindset of four teams of its employees with face to face contact with tenant/customers.  The Think Yes Experiment was designed to move employees into a “Yes We Can” and “Yes We Will” mindset. 

Liberating employees with a direct interface with customers was a key element of the experiment, one introduced without extensive pre-training or comprehensive guidance; but where employees reacted positively and embraced their new role.  Creating emotional engagement between staff and tenants drove improvements in staff AND customer satisfaction to exceptional levels in a short space of time.