Changing the narrative on safety and compliance

In a new regulatory era where landlords are judged on perception, we need to ensure our actions and behaviours in communities, online and in the office reflect the values of the organisations we work for.

Our role is to keep people safe, but also to build and maintain trusting relationships. This starts by making sure we have the right processes in place and that we are operationally sound.

There are legal and contractual obligations for what a contractor must deliver, but this should be the baseline of what we do – not a target.

At Liberty, we begin by prioritising open communication with residents through multiple channels, including letters, texts and customer check-ins before, during and after each visit. We also place a QR code on the side of every boiler, giving residents instant access to a customer hub with live chat, support and other resources.

Our customer safety strategy (Respect), initially used during the pandemic, ensures we separate work areas, explain each stage of work to the resident and treat people’s homes with care. By delivering on scheduled appointments and respecting residents’ spaces, we drive customer engagement and trust.

“Our role is to keep people safe, but also to build and maintain trusting relationships. This starts by making sure we have the right processes in place and that we are operationally sound”

We want to make every contact count when we are in people’s homes.

Our team undergoes regular training, from the initial onboarding process to performance reviews, and they take the time to interact and check in with residents while working in their homes.

Liberty has a red, amber, green (RAG) status system that supports the teams to ensure we are prioritising work in the right homes, and we can flag issues up early to access properties to carry out checks.

We stay on top of the latest legislation and best practices in areas such as smoke alarms, carbon monoxide detectors and fire safety to make sure we’re working with landlords well in advance to put the right checks in place and proactively adapt our approach.

Our jeopardy toolkits also help us spot and mitigate risk on every contract we work on, which strengthens our commitment to safety and reliability.

We need to flip the narrative around the work we do in people’s homes – and that can only be done with collaboration between resident groups, landlords and contractors.

“We need to get into your home because it’s important we are compliant” is not a compelling message for residents.

Instead, we must be clear on the benefits these checks bring to individuals and communities, and the risks if they don’t happen. Gas safety checks play a huge role in keeping people and families safe – they are essentially an MOT on people’s homes.

We need to look beyond telling people what we do and why the work is required. It is important to understand how we make them feel following every interaction with us.

“We need to flip the narrative around the work we do in people’s homes – and that can only be done with collaboration between resident groups, landlords and contractors”

Not only will this improve access rates for contractors going into people’s homes, but increase resident satisfaction too.

The regulator, the ombudsman and just about everyone working in social housing know that good data leads to better services – and happier residents. We can provide lots of information to landlords from our visits; the key is making sure that it is accurate and useful.

This is one of the reasons we have aligned our net promotor score questions to some of the tenant satisfaction measures, included in our surveys. This enables landlords to see a direct link between our work in people’s homes and general satisfaction.

This level of transparency is important for landlords when they appoint multiple contractors, to allow them to make informed decisions around which areas are driving up satisfaction and which are having a negative impact.

Compliance has changed and Liberty continues to strive to shape that change to align with our client’s needs.

We’ve listened to feedback from landlords and residents and hear that we have a much bigger role to play in people’s homes and in the sector.

We’ll get behind every door to make sure homes are safe, but also take time to understand residents, treat people with empathy and provide feedback on what we find.

That’s how we can make sure that residents live in safe homes while helping landlords tell a story of care, reliability and respect.

Karen Sloan, managing director (heating and compliance), Liberty