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A view from the Housing jobs fair
At the Housing conference in Manchester, local social landlords set out their stall for jobseekers and people in search of apprenticeships. Stephen Delahunty visits to find out how the market is going, both for those looking for work and landlords seeking to fill roles. Photography by Guzelian
The sun is beaming in through the windows at the exhibition and conference centre in Manchester, while school students and jobseekers mingled with delegates and recruitment professionals from across the region. They are here to find out what a career in the sector might look like.
It is the last day of the massive Housing 2023 conference at the Manchester Central Convention Complex, and one corner of the centre is given over to the gentle hum of inquiry, as a steady trickle of visitors questioned housing recruiters about their future job prospects.
Around a dozen organisations from the social housing sector have set up stalls as part of a jobs fair set up by the HR workstream group at Greater Manchester Housing Providers (GMHP). This is a chance for housing recruiters to pitch the sector, and their organisations, as a great place to work. Their target is everyone from school leavers to older jobseekers.
Amid labour shortages in construction and a sector that appears to be grappling with its reputation following a number of high-profile tragedies and cases of disrepair, do jobseekers still find the sector a desirable place to work?
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The Manchester group is made up of all the HR leads from the 26 landlords in the partnership who meet bi-monthly to share best practice, learning and work together on a number of issues. These include recruitment, flexible/hybrid and new ways of working, workforce planning, and pay and benefits.
Elaine Johnson, director of people at Great Places Housing Group, says the idea for the jobs fair came up in the recruitment workstream because landlords in the region were struggling to recruit from outside the sector.
“Quickly the conversation moved on from not just wanting to highlight the sector as somewhere to begin a career that has purpose, but also how they could get that message into schools and with careers advisors,” she explains.
“I don’t really think people fully understand the breadth of career opportunities within housing”
GMHP then shared news of the event with their community teams to advertise with tenants and the Greater Manchester Good Employment Charter got involved, too.
The region’s apprenticeship service soon followed suit, followed by local universities, and services that support care leavers and the Armed Forces.
With the message spread far and wide, attendees were given a chance to hear what the sector has to offer.
Kendra Brown, community development manager, has set up a stall with colleagues from Wythenshawe Community Housing Group.
She says: “I don’t really think people fully understand the breadth of career opportunities within housing. The traditional view is bricks and mortar and trade jobs, but there is so much more.”
She explains that her own housing association has a number of employment programmes. Ms Brown adds: “I’m not a housing professional per se, but I have a career in the sector, and some colleagues here work in areas like HR. So I think it’s good to have an event like this, where people can come along and can really open their eyes.”
She says the response has been good so far, but jokes that it might be down to “the nice sweets we’re giving away”.
She adds: “We’ve had a really busy crowd all day. We’ve had some schools and colleges come and approach us, so we’ve been able to link in with them and talk about work experience opportunities, our apprenticeship programme that we run, so it’s been a really good day.”
In Ms Brown’s experience, it is a “buyers’ market out there for jobseekers at the moment”. She adds: “I think they are in the position of power at the moment where they can afford to shop around.
“So it’s about making sure that your offer is more than just a job but other benefits like organisational culture, agile working that fits with people’s lifestyles – you need the complete package as an employer.”
Michelle Johnson, talent and resource business partner at Your Housing Group, says the landlord wanted a presence at the fair to explain the different levels of roles, from entry, graduate and apprenticeship.
She explains: “It’s really competitive in the housing market, so we’re working hard to grow our own talent and be more flexible in our recruitment approach. We’ve had lots of interest in people looking for trades and apprenticeships.
For Ms Johnson, the social value and contribution to improving people’s lives are what attract people to the housing sector. She concedes that if people are not looking for a trade, then “it’s probably more of an attraction for graduates coming through at the moment”.
She adds: “We’re looking to recruit repairs and maintenance surveyor roles and damp and mould, and on the corporate and assets side of things. There’s all these opportunities and it’s a great environment, and could also work if you want to try new things and maybe sidestep into other areas.”
But not everyone at the fair feels like they have heard enough to make that sidestep just yet. Forty-six-year-old Keith works in a care home, but has a background in educational films and video games, alongside more than two decades in hospitality.
He is here with his wife Anne Marie, as both are considering a career change. However, Keith is not yet convinced.
“I’ve got a lot of flyers, so I will probably get bombarded with emails now. But it’s like most jobs these days – they tell you what they need from you and you go down the list and have most of those skills apart from, like, two. But it’s those two they won’t give you training on,” he explains.
So Keith has not come away considering an immediate career in housing, but he is worried that “considering the current climate, this industry might implode in on itself”.
However, he is quick to admit that Anne Marie, who looks to be having a very animated chat at one of the stalls, could have found the fair more useful than he had.
Natalie Woods is at the jobs fair to support her son Jack, who is looking for an apprenticeship. Ms Woods is the deputy headteacher of Oliver House School in Chorley, a specialist school for autistic pupils. Jack also attends the school and is due to finish at the end of the month.
She does not yet have any links with local housing associations. “We have attempted this academic year to get someone in during careers week, but we haven’t managed to secure that yet, so we’ll be looking into that for next academic year,” she says.
Ms Woods wants to ensure that young people at the school have at least two encounters with potential employers.
“So the housing sector could be one,” she explains. “But we get very little in that sense, and we’ve got students that are obviously really keen and interested in the housing sector with trades and apprenticeships.”
Nineteen-year-old Jack says he is “looking for a trade in electrics or plumbing”, but adds that he did not really know much about the sector or how to get involved before attending the jobs fair.
Sixteen-year-old Michael Brown, who is currently studying at a college in the city centre, is here with his father, looking for a Level 3 apprenticeship. They both feel the advice they have received so far has been good, and Michael is feeling more optimistic about his prospects in the sector after speaking to people at some of the stalls.
GMHP had an apprentice recruitment drive in the week running up to the fair, and with the event, it now has 1,044 applications.
Joinery and plumbing are among the most popular jobs with potential apprentices. But for those older jobseekers looking for something a bit more immediate, James Wilson was feeling somewhat frustrated at being directed online to search for what vacancies were available.
He says: “One of them [stalls] wasn’t able to tell me about all of the job vacancies they had and told me to go to the website.”
Mr Wilson says his key worker had been helping him look for work “for quite a while now”, but feels that some of the adverts he was seeing were asking for too much.
“What do they really expect for £10 an hour? It’s not like back in the day when you could just walk in the job centre and get a direct job number. Even just basic jobs, they ask some ridiculous questions,” he adds.
He says it seems like the housing sector could be a good place to work, but adds that he is “just after anything at this point”.
Your Housing Group’s Ms Johnson says she was on “a bit of a crusade” to persuade providers to prioritise helping their residents into roles in the sector, especially those who are unemployed, in insecure work or interested in apprenticeships.
She adds: “One of the objectives was to help some of our tenants get into good work. We’ve got loads of tenants and residents who are trapped in low-paid and insecure work.
“So we wanted to reach out and say, ‘We can help develop the skills, we’ve got the employers and we can keep all this talent in the sector.’”
