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Manchester landlords target 20% recruitment from tenants
Landlords in Manchester have set a target to recruit 20% of their staff from social housing tenants by 2034.
The initiative, called the 20% Movement, came from the 26 chief executives of the Greater Manchester Housing Providers (GMPH) and their reflections on the book The Good Ancestor by Roman Krznaric, which encourages people to think about their descendants.
The membership body settled on a pledge that by 2034, 20% of staff in each housing association will be from a social renting household.
According to Great Places Housing Group, many landlords do not currently measure this and those that do, have between 7% and 8%.
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GMHP said the pledge also links with the Better Social Housing Review, which stated: “When recruiting new housing officers in particular, organisations should seek to attract candidates from the communities they are based in, both to widen representation and to build stronger connections between the staff and the tenants they support.”
Alison Dean, chief executive of Great Places, said: “We believe that by employing more people with lived experience of social housing, it will help us improve our services because our customers know our offer and understand the impact of good and bad service delivery on other customers.
“This project goes against the traditional thinking that housing associations have had about employing tenants where the risks were often considered to be too great. Instead, we are building on the recommendations of the Better Social Housing Review to widen representation and build stronger connections between colleagues, customers and communities.
“Our sector is a great employer, and we offer meaningful and secure work, career development and a fair deal to colleagues which unfortunately is not always available.”
GMHP is also updating its care leavers pledge and working on a new training package for landlords on tailoring their service to care leavers and tackling stigma. The training is being designed by the Greater Manchester Youth Network with input from care leavers.
There have been a number of recruitment drives in the sector over the past 12 months. Earlier this year, Inside Housing launched its Housing Hires campaign to promote the social housing sector as a place to work and support people to find and develop careers at housing associations and councils.
At the end of last month, the National House Building Council announced it will invest £100m in the first tranche of 32 new skills hubs planned by the government that will deliver fast-track training across the UK.
Places for People revealed in October it had set up a new training programme for the housing and construction sector, with an aim to train more than 200 apprentices in the first year.
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