Flexibility is the key to the future for housing providers

Being there from the start of RHP, I’ve used this milestone as an opportunity to reflect on how we want to evolve as an organisation and move forward into a new era. Over the next 12 months, we’ll be focusing on the following three things:

• Even better homes for new and existing customers. We’ll be using our Home Standard (which we launched last year) to bring all of our empty homes up to a higher standard. This means that any home that someone moves into will be freshly decorated with new carpets throughout. The customer is able to choose from two paint colours for the walls and is welcomed with a specially selected carpet to make the home look as bright and open as possible. We’ll also be making homes greener, starting with improving the energy efficiency of all of our stock. And we’ll of course continue to make sure our homes are a safe place to live, which includes the completion of a major sprinkler programme.
• Supercharge our service, matching the very best in the business world. We want to deliver high-quality direct services such as repairs and caretaking, and make it easy and convenient for customers to carry out day-to-day interactions online or through whatever channel they choose, while also still being there for people who need more help and support or have a complex issue. Within all of this, we’ll be adapting our services to help meet changing customer needs and expectations following the pandemic (see more on this later on).
• Create an even better place to work with a more inclusive culture. With our flexible working programme ‘Your Work, Your Way’, we aim to cast our net wider and welcome more people from a diverse range of backgrounds, sectors and experience. The goal is to attract people who might not have previously thought about working in the housing sector, because of what we do, how we do it, our strong social purpose and the way we value every individual and enable them to be the best they can be.

We recognise that these goals aren’t groundbreaking, however what feels right to us at this moment in time is to strip things back, get the basics right and concentrate on the things that’ll truly make the biggest difference to our customers.

Adapting to a changing world

Even before the pandemic, we knew that customer expectations were changing, however COVID-19 has now accelerated this. The period of risk to health, economic uncertainty and isolation has changed customer behaviour – in some cases forever.

The pandemic has impacted how we communicate, travel, work, shop and access services. One part of this that is particularly relevant to us is that while people have been forced to stay at home, it’s accelerated their use of digital services and they expect these to be quick, convenient and easy to use.

Over the past decade, we’ve successfully evolved with the changing world around us to adapt how we deliver our services, including the transition of our core services online.

However, the world moves on and customers’ needs and expectations change. That’s why if we’re to continue on our quest to be one of the best service providers in the UK, we need to evolve the way we do things. One way we’re addressing this is through our Rewire transformation programme. This spans the whole business and is looking at how we’re structured and work together, as well as reviewing our data and systems so that we have one version of the truth (eg one repairs platform where we all have the same view of the repairs journey). The programme is essentially rewiring what we do, so that we can deliver an even better experience for customers and make our employees’ jobs easier. There will also be a relentless drive for greater efficiency as part of Rewire – so that we can free up resources to invest in things that matter most. The first stage of the programme will be looking at our assets, repairs and lettings experiences.

Rewire goes hand-in-hand with our customer service programme Stellar, which is designed to provide everyone with a set of skills and mindsets that will enable us to work together to deliver a consistently excellent service, whatever the channel and whoever the customer. Every single person from across the organisation is going through the programme and it places just as much emphasis on internal customer service as external.

We’ve already adapted how we work with the recent launch of the next evolution of our flexible working programme Your Work, Your Way. Your Work, Your Way provides people with choice and flexibility around how, when and where they work to enable them to be the best version of themselves, get the best out of their lives and do the best for our customers. The flexibility in the programme doesn’t just mean we can help enhance employees’ lives, but it also importantly means we can provide more flexible services for customers too, with the potential to expand our operating days and hours.

Additionally, for obvious reasons, home has gained increasing importance over the past 18 months, with us spending more time there than ever with homeworking and changes in the way we live. Therefore, it’s never been more important that we’re able to provide people with a sanctuary: safe, warm and green homes that people can feel proud of.

A fresh perspective

It feels like perfect timing, that in the same month we turn 21, we also welcomed a new chair of our board, Simon Devonshire. Our previous chair, John Newbury, completed a very successful nine-year term after making a substantial impact on our business.

Now it’s time for our next evolution. I know Simon will play a pivotal role in helping to shape what the future looks like for us. When we went out to recruit for a new chair, it was important that we brought someone on board with diverse experience, who could provide a fresh perspective and bring thinking in from outside the sector. We’ve certainly achieved that with Simon who has had both an extensive corporate career and is a serial entrepreneur. This includes previously running O2 Business, serving as entrepreneur in residence for the UK government and co-founding One Water which has donated more than £20m to providing clean water in Africa. I’m excited to work together with Simon to continually push boundaries and move into our new era as an organisation.

With all of these things at play, we’re on the cusp of our next evolution. In some ways as we turn 21, it feels like we’ve only just begun.

David Done, chief executive, RHP