Rebecca White

But for Covid19, we wouldn’t have made it blended for a start.  But let me go back a bit.  Over the years we’re run a few Open Days.  We’ve planned as a team to showcase what we do and invite a few partners. In the early days they were often previous colleagues of mine or people who just latched onto what we did. We didn’t have lots of customers.

We would run it around three days a year (how did we have the time?), down tools, throw open the doors and welcome people with the lure of the kettle being on.  Generally lovely people turned up for a couple of hours, a cuppa and some cake. It was ‘nice’, quite fun and oddly good for team building and time together.  Was it an impactful and effective use of our time?  Not so much.  

Covid19 of course meant no Open Days at all for a while.  It meant a focus on survival, wellbeing, reaching people in crisis and everyone’s favourite, ‘pivoting’. So here we are, with super keen and new members of the team, a cautious and safe return to face to face and a five-year growth plan.  Open Days, naturally on the back burner when you’re busy, but also a vital part of our marketing strategy.  What should a ‘post Covid19’ Open Day look like? ‘Blended’ of course.

The simple joys of the new ideas that new team members bring.  Once you’ve seen collaborative working, trusted people to be creative, provided the parameters for that work, you can’t unsee it.  Our first ever Blended Open Day in September was our best yet, and I mean in terms of quality rather than quantity.

Here’s what we learnt:

• It’s a team task as well as an opportunity.  Whilst on the face of it, it’s more work, it’s a chance to do some lateral thinking, across projects instead of vertically and to collaborate across different workstreams.  It’s also a chance to have a bit of a free reign and create your own offer.  We provided three webinars online that attendees could choose to attend as well as a treasure hunt that showcased us in the office.

• It’s quality and not quantity.  Of course people won’t turn up.  Anyone who has put something on for free, knows this.  Oversubscribing, especially with our highly interactive approach, puts the team on edge and it can be a lot of pressure to perform.  I still hold with oversubscribing by about 50%. 

• It’s all about timing.  We ran it in September.  This means that most of the marketing was over the summer.  This is not a great time, even during the year of staycation. The timing was about our work pressures and not that of our target attendees. We’d be really interested to try a different time of the year. 

• Showcase what you do.  Webinars and face to face content by necessity actually meant that everyone had a clearly defined role, we got to show all aspects of our expertise and most importantly, people felt catered for and could engage in a way that suited them.  Online attendees were not second class citizens and of course we got to record it and share it online too.

• Mop up is as important as marketing. The focus can easily be on the doing on the day and the promoting.  Just as important, and if not more so if this is about generating business, is your strategy for follow up. How will you get people to sign up on the day, provide feedback and gain their permission to follow up and start a conversation as a ‘warm lead’?

• People love choice and freebies.  Face to face and webinars gave people choice.  The trainees we work with aren’t the only people who learn and engage in unique ways.  We all do, so why wouldn’t we, as a business that describes itself as ‘innovative, engaging and fun’, create multiple ways to get involved?  Oh, and there were free resources for those that attended, cupcakes with our tenancy sustainment modules on them and prizes too! 

Why on earth didn’t we think of ‘blended’ without the Covid19 nudge? 

 

Engagement. It’s a word our sector uses a lot and we all do it a lot. There is undoubtedly some very good practise in the housing sector and some really poor practise too. And then there’s those that pretend they’ve got good practise nailed and those that wonder why it doesn’t work. 

Here’s the thing. When we make a new friend, get chatting to someone in the gym or go on a first date, we don’t consider our approach to engagement. We’re just the best version of ourselves when we’re with others (mostly). 

What does engagement even mean? It surely means building a positive relationship akin to our values. In our sector, essentially, this means we aim to get people to do things we want them to do. How different is that in a personal relationship in as far as we want that person to be in our ‘tribe’. Engagement means not being a d^*%, treating people decently, being honest (which may mean vulnerable), being reciprocal, apologising from time to time, making some kind of commitment and showing up – to quote the great Brené Brown. 

With the Housing White Paper comes a renewed focus on resident engagement. This has to be a massive opportunity for us all, including those kidding ourselves that they’ve got this nailed, to explore what engagement means in practise. 

So here’s what all those normal human approaches to a friendship might practically look like in the housing sector and repackaged as engagement. 

• treating people decently – this means telling the truth if you have to change plans or got something wrong. It means listening to their suggestions (and again – being honest about why you might ignore some)

• being honest and brave (which may mean vulnerable) – as above, there are very few reasons that people can’t be trusted with the truth if you just have to change the date. Or if you have not met the plans for year one – discuss and share why. This will give huge insight into your world and build empathy. 

• being reciprocal – we’re humans and generally pretty selfish. If someone does something for you, do something back. But don’t assume it’s a voucher they want (would you get that for your friend after they gave you a lift to the garage?). Ask (explaining the parameters you have) what people want and keep asking. People change. 

• apologising from time to time – wow it goes a long way. And with no ‘buts’. Just say sorry – I stuffed up and I’m human. 

• making some kind of commitment – good engagement takes time, values, energy and money. You wouldn’t start a relationship saying that you’ll probably have to end it in a year as you’ll run out of capacity. Be honest about the challenges, involve people in the solutions and own your commitment to finding a way forward. If it’s really just for a year – be honest about that, set realistic aims and consider how this will impact on your relationship. 

• showing up – be your best! This is the one that might differ from a friend. A good friend will let you have a bad day. Resident engagement is a job – people rely on and trust you. Don’t sit on your phone or look bored. For that time to be worthy of their time and commitment, follow all the steps above to being your absolute best. People deserve no less.

Tenancy sustainment work has long been important for landlords not only wishing to ensure the rent is collected, but to support their tenants to thrive in their homes. In this piece Rebecca White explores why it matters now more than ever and shares her organisation’s empowering approach to achieving it. 

We’re all emerging into a world that has changed forever.  If there is a new normal, for many it is one that means more competition for jobs that don’t pay, worsening mental health and fewer opportunities.  The financial headaches for us as individuals must surely be replicated corporately in the boardrooms of housing associations up and down the land. 

Of all the partners we work with, we’ve huge empathy for our colleagues in social housing.  Not a conversation passes when we don’t learn of concern for a particular tenant, the extraordinary lengths many have gone to to keep people safe in their homes, maintenance teams now grappling to catch up with repairs and tenants disengaging due to anxiety and months of isolation. All the while the business model depends on the rent being collected every single week.  

So why is it then, when engagement for the purposes of tenancy sustainment is so important, that the actual people engagement is often so poor? As organisations that spend a lot of time and money trying to engage, why is practice so mired in assumptions, people feeling patronised and being mis-advised rather than listened to? Why are tenants blamed when systems don’t work and judged when we can’t know their lived experience or what choices look and feel like to them?

Against this backdrop of missed opportunities how does a system that has been managing crises for a year, return to a ‘prevention’ mindset and rebuild the relationships necessary for tenancy sustainment? 

Because it has to. To ignore the prevention agenda now would likely prove dangerous financially.  It would also be harmful to the very people landlords regard as valued customers and whose lives are wrapped up in the place that should be their safe and secure home. One housing association confided in me that even before Covid19, over 85% of their tenants had less than £10 in savings. Since Covid19 the number of people claiming unemployment benefits has risen 120% and Shelter reports that over 80% of social housing tenants have no savings at all. In terms of the safety net, there isn’t one. Whilst many of us are cautiously optimistic about the vaccination programme, the ending of the furlough scheme looms for more than five million people in October. It poses new risks to those in insecure and uncertain jobs. The economic tail of Covid19 will wag for years and probably decades with many housing associations already reporting increases in rent arrears. 

At Your Own Place we work to sustain tenancies and prevent homelessness. With a starting point of equality, we create workshops for people who are as diverse, worthy, talented, frustrated and experienced as any of us.  Who hasn’t sat in dull training because it doesn’t suit our learning style?  The need to adapt, keep it engaging, manage diverse styles and overcome barriers is just as present in our tenancy sustainment work. 

Nowhere is it more tested than in our group delivery. In groups of just eight (and six online) we deliver Tenancy & Independent Living Skills Plus (TILS+ or DigiTILS+). We extend our value of equality into taking an asset-based approach.  We leave assumptions at the door.  There is no cynicism and we are relentlessly upbeat (whilst acknowledging and empathising when life is unfair). We deliver group work that builds on what people do know and can do rather than when things have gone wrong or they have picked up a label not of their choosing. 

Notwithstanding the importance of managing risk, as an independent organisation our strength is starting with a level playing field. There’s no backstory, no history of rent arrears or the big dog.  These are the kinds of things that it’s all too easy to get hung up on, blame people for and use as an excuse to label tenants ‘hard to reach’.

Our approach is to work in small groups. Mostly our facilitation doesn’t even need tables, as there’s almost no writing. In a group of tenants ages 20-60 and when your starting position is equality, the chances are they’ve collectively got the answers. We ‘simply’ facilitate the emergence and recognition of their own skills, knowledge and solutions. So whilst we measure the outcomes related to knowledge around financial skills as crucial to achieving our outcomes, the ones that matter are the ones that relate to their own confidence and faith in their own ability to solve the next problem.  

In our groups the age range may equate to 100 years of shared tenancy experience. 100 years! It would be criminal for everyone else in the room not to benefit from this. What’s more it would be sheer arrogance for us to pretend we know more. Our framework of modules and thematic areas (money, housing and relationships) to work through guides the room to their own eureka moments. One person may benefit from another’s previous eviction experience or a tenant’s knowledge of a nearby debt agency that helped their mum out. This is peer learning at its absolute best. 

Over 87% of our trainees report increased tenancy skills and 82% improved understanding of their bills. Perhaps most importantly we have 94% retention on our workshops – building the relationships and human contact that has been lost over the last year. The case for group work is strong.  Stronger against a backdrop of a Housing White Paper advocating for an empowering approach to working with tenants. The case for values and independently-led tenancy sustainment group work is the strongest it’s ever been.  

To find out more contact rebecca@yourownplace.org.uk mob 07530 028446