YHN's Gap year - the year that was

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“If we want to make YHN a fantastic place to work and to provide a fantastic customer experience, we will need to change”.

• All aboard! Starting our Gap Year - August 2016

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100 Days of Insight: -

Customer Service - October 2016 Culture - November 2016 Productivity - December 2016 Understanding the city - January 2017

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• The YHN Way - August 2017

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• Closing our Gap Year - September 2017

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“It has to feel different to what it was before - that’s what change means. It should instil in each of us the desire to keep changing, to not stand still”.

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Gaapr Ye I’ve only been here for a short time but I am really impressed with what I’ve seen so far. We care about our customers and are committed to the cause of social housing; great things have been achieved and we must never forget those. But the changes will keep coming and we can’t just keep shuffling the pack.

Some people came to the first roadshow expecting me to unveil some grand plan, setting out exactly what I was going to change and when.

Today I hope to give you a sense of how I work and how I want to work with you to develop our “Grand Plan” together.

I’ve already met quite a few of you as I’ve been making my way around YHN. My first couple of months at YHN has made it clear that it’s a good place to work. But if we want to make YHN a fantastic place to work and to provide a fantastic customer experience, we will need to change. A shift in attitudes, culture and working practices may be required, but this is not something we should do lightly. And I haven’t brought a magic wand with me.

So, we’re going to take a gap year. Sadly, that doesn’t mean we’re all off to teach English in Japan, build schools in Africa, or sit on the beach for months.

Much as we might like to!

Tina Drury Managing Director

But, like a student who’s just passed their A-levels after the relentless treadmill of studying, we’re going to take stock, open our minds and try out new ways of doing things, while we decide what we want to do and where we want to go next.

Throughout the year l’ll ask for your views and ideas and then we’ll come back in 12 months to see what we’ve learnt and how we can build on it.

You won’t need to wait twelve months before you see changes; some things can happen right now. I will be talking to Board about our proposed journey; before Christmas I hope that we will have already involved you in working through some big issues – I’m particularly keen to take a fresh look at how we manage our relationship with customers.

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12 months starting now!

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Serious work taken too seriously?

But what exactly does it mean to go on a gap year?

But it can't be like that all the time!

The reasons that people typically give, range from the sublime:

Most of us spend most of our time at work so it needs to be a positive experience.

• to stretch or test themselves • to ‘be changed by the experience’ Through to the more basic • to have a shinier CV • to have something to talk about But for anyone involved in a gap year - as a collective, or as an individual – it gives us a little bit of time and space to think.

For us, it’s time to consider what is and isn’t working, where we could do more, be more to customers and where we could change for the better.

I want us to try new things and to think differently about what we’re here for.

We won’t be moving around – not least as there’s a day job to contend with – but we will be learning about how things are done elsewhere.

And we’ll make changes along the way to ensure we’re responding to changing customer expectations and preferences. The measure of our intelligence will be our ability to change and develop; our ability to adapt will make us resilient.

We need to be quick thinking and make decisions quickly – be flexible.

I know it can be a tough job regardless of whether you’re out there working on our estates or behind the scenes back at YHN House.

Work is serious, but it has to be fun as well. We all need to work with a sense of purpose, a sense of worth, and, where appropriate, a sense of humour.

For me, I think we need to give ourselves some time for more optimism.

During my first two months at YHN I have been out and about quite a bit. I’ve found it quite tricky to pinpoint what it’s like to work at YHN. Some of our workplaces feel so different from each other that it doesn’t feel like the same company.

Some places to me have felt quite downbeat, and that's a shame.

I’m not looking for uniformity here, just a more upbeat look and feel. A culture that each of us can identify with and be proud of.

There’s lots of reasons why it’s like that at the moment, but overall I think that this – in common with most other big public sector places of its size – has become quite autocratic over time. I may be the Managing Director, with the corner office, but there’s no airs and graces here, and I don’t have all of the answers. In fact dare I say it - I’m one of the least important people in this business.

we can act on your ideas, we will; where we can’t, we’ll explain why.

And some of this – quite unwittingly I think – translates into the way we deliver services. At the moment I don’t feel we are easy to do business with.

Think of it from our customers’ point of view: we have multiple telephone numbers, we have lots of detailed procedures. Looking at the tenant newsletter this morning I counted 16 different telephone numbers.

Processes and systems are driving these things, not customers.

No-one wants to work hard at being a customer, so we need to listen to them and put their preferences and behaviours at the heart of the decisions we make. The aim is to make YHN a more relevant and engaging organisation that is easy to do business with.

Similarly, our core values have to better reflect the challenges we face and the energy we need to bring to the table. They need to be doing things, not reflective things – customers expect accountability as a minimum these days.

This is a big organisation that is full of talented people.

We need to nurture that talent and use that talent to re-engineer our business to bring about transformational change.

I want you to know that you can talk to me, and your ideas and feedback will be valued. Where

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www.yhn.org.uk

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Team YHN Many of you have said to me that you’re excited for change to come. Well, now’s our time! The opportunity is there to transform many of the traditional ways of doing things and even do something new.

We should embrace that opportunity.

Stopping to take stock like this doesn’t mean that we forget about the things that YHN has achieved to this point.

It’s more about stepping away from the path we’ve been following for a while to see what we’re really capable of.

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We have to use this time to identify opportunities we’ve never considered, thinking about delivering services customers haven’t even thought of yet.

I want us to use our “Gap Year” to help us become the best version of ourselves, so that YHN in turn becomes the best it can be. To me, this means four things.

"Customer services from their point of view" Firstly, it means that we are completely customer focused, that we know our customers inside and out.

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That we make ourselves available to them however and whenever they want us to and we understand what it is they want from us, we step into their shoes at every contact so that every contact counts.

"Joined-up-services, signedup-staff" Secondly, it means that our culture supports this. That we all have a positive, can do attitude, that we get rid of any demarcation lines that may exist, that we value the right things, and that we’re flexible, open and adapt easily.

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Your chance to shine..

"Proud of our city and the places we manage" Thirdly, it means that we understand this fantastic city, its history, its geography, its neighbourhoods, and communities, and that we take pride in being a part of it.

"Bang for their buck, whoever they are"

You may also find yourself invited to other events, perhaps a little smaller than these, so that you can share more of your thoughts and ideas with me.

We’re already doing things they should know about – sharing more of that with the outside world will help us do some of the other things we need to do.

I am keen that this is an open and engaging experience for us all.

I think we have to share more.

Tell the region and others how brilliant we are. I want our leaders to be engaged and impactful and I want our front line staff to be empowered and enabled.

If you’re asked to take part, I really would appreciate you coming along. I genuinely want to understand as much as possible about how YHN works and who it works with.

I want to be invited to conferences and seminars to talk about the fantastic innovations we’ve implemented here at YHN.

Lastly, it means we are efficient, productive, and able to create value and we help the council and tenants to get as much as possible for their money.

Nobody is in a better position to tell me than you.

But, most of all, I want you to be part of it.

As I said, these are the main things

That, in a nutshell, is my take on things. Four simple things that aren’t beyond our reach or capability.

I want to look at in the coming months and I’ll be in touch in various ways to get your opinions on how we can do it.

Some things will happen straight away, some will take longer.

I think we have the ability to be amazing – the million dollar question is do we have the willingness?

We may be looking at some quite significant changes and I appreciate that it can be unsettling.

I know how important information and communication can be in times of change and I’ll be working hard with managers and via e-mail and blogs to make sure that you’re as informed as you can be as things progress.

I want us to be game changers.

I want other organisations to look at us and think, “wow, we want to be like them!” I want to be part of that.

I want you to be signed up to the changes, I want you to feel as excited about our future as I do and I want us all to be energetic and up for the challenge.

Individuals win games, but its teams that win championships.

Ultimately, individuals and teams need each other. In other words, we all need each other.

All that’s left for us to do is invent our future together. I have every trust and confidence in you that we can do this!

If you want to travel fast, go aloneer. If you want to travel far, go togeth page: 4

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An update from Jen Vinton

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Customers also had the opportunity to tell us what they think of us through a Big Brother style diary room at the big events and we had some smaller scale events in each of our local housing offices where we asked people to rate our customer service.

Our journey to understand customer service

Some of our customers took the opportunity to work shadow some of our staff, with activities taking place in housing options, tenancy and estate management, sheltered housing, property maintenance, Ostara and NFS. You can read about some of our customers’ experiences in the boxes in this document.

Our Gap Year is all about thinking about where we are now and where we want to be in future and, at the moment, we’re gathering lots of information to help us make improvements further down the line – this is our 100 days of insight.

Throughout October we focused on customer service and organised lots of activities with staff and customers to help us better understand how good our customer service is now, and what we might be able to do to improve it.

Here you’ll find a round-up of the activities we held and the lessons we learnt. There’s more information available on our intranet so, if you have the chance to look there, I’d advise you to take advantage of that.

Ben spent time with housing

Our work with customers - what did we do?

We held some events with customers where they were able to come along and meet Tina face to face to ask her any questions they may have and to tell her what they think about our customer service currently.

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options, he said:

“There’s definitely a lot more work involved in the job than I thought and staff have to work on various different system s, I wonder if streamlining them might be an improvement to lessen workload an d make the process quicker for customers?”

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Gaapr Ye What did we find out?

Over 200 customers gave us feedback during October and they identified their priorities as: • Improving response times at contact centres • Making sure customers don’t have to chase up repairs • Making sure enquiries are dealt with at first point of contact

Sarah worked with the sheltered housing service, she said:

• Reducing waiting times for face to face appointments in hubs

“I’d give the sheltered housing service a four out of five for customer service as I think it’s really good. Sue gets on with everyone and does a lot, more than I would expect any one person to do.”

• Encouraging staff to take ownership of problems and to deal with them • Making sure internal systems “talk to each other” • Making applying for a home an easy and quick process • Making sure we have an effective and efficient repairs service • Not having to make a formal complaint every time something goes wrong

Mark spent time with tenancy and estates, he said

“As a tenant, it’s important to know that you guys are working for us and doing the best you can and that really came across.”

And Sharon was with him too and she said: “I’d give YHN five stars for customer service based on what I saw – they’re all for the tenants and the estate they manage, they want the estate to be up to scratch so they go out of their way.”

Our work with staff - what did we do?

We held focus groups with over 200 members of front line staff who provided lots of ideas and took part in some fantastic discussions. We also held a drop in event with Tina where more members of staff were able to provide feedback and make suggestions.

Lots of members of staff have made suggestions in the focus groups and via the feedback section on our intranet page for the Gap Year. There’s still time for you to make a suggestion if you’d like to and don’t worry if you don’t have access to the intranet pages; please just get in touch with me directly.

Some of our senior managers also took part in a “back to the floor” exercise where they spent time with other members of staff who have more customer-facing jobs. This gave them the opportunity to learn more about what that job entails and to see whether there were any areas for improvement that they could suggest.

You can read about some of their experiences – including mine! – in the boxes in this document too.

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www.yhn.org.uk

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Gaapr Ye What did we find out?

Helpfully, it seems like staff think similar things to customers about what we need to do – which is really good and shows we’re on the same page!

Throughout October, staff told us that their priorities are: • We need the right staff in the right jobs • We need to review our relationship with customers and our specialist housing management services • Our customer relationship management system needs to be fit for purpose • Staff need the right technology • We need to address the fact that customer experience is affected by wait times in hubs and on the telephone

I spent some time in the enquiry centre, here are my thoughts:

“The advisors were all very polite and they listened to what the customers were telling them – many of the customers went into lots of detail before being able to describe what their query was, but the advisors were both really patient. The staff deal with some very difficult and distressing conversations and it felt like there was a lot of responsibility placed on them as the first point of contact for these calls.”

• Real time feedback will help reduce complaints

What now?

So, there’s lots to think about in terms of customer service, but some really good work already happening that we can be very proud of. The next month will be spent thinking about our culture and we’ll update you on that as soon as possible.

There’s more information on our intranet so please do check it out if you get the chance.

John Urwin, head of housing options, spent his time with environmental services. He said:

There seemed to be a natural rapport with the customers they interacted with and a detailed knowledge of each customer due to the frequent visits they have made to the property.

There was a clear respect for the customer’s property, from the way they carried out their duties in a tidy and efficient manner, right down to making sure gates were closed behind them etc.“

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Tina Drury, our managing director, went “back to the floor” with the concierge service, she

said:

“The guys I met had obviously taken some time to prepare for my visit and therefore I was able to better understand how the service works, some of the challenges they face and appreciate what day to day tasks they carry out. I was surprised at the range of things they do, particularly the response team who certainly have some unpleasant things to deal with.

These guys really do have to deal with some difficult circumstances which I’m not sure is appreciated by the rest of us at YHN.”

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e ur lt Cu

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Gaapr Ye culture cuppas

The Gap Year An update from Jen Vinton

To better understand our current culture we organised a series of interactive sessions with staff and managers. These sessions provided valuable information on why it is like this, and what our future culture could feel like.

Our journey to understanding our culture

Here you’ll find a round-up of the activities we held and the lessons we learnt.

Our Gap Year is all about thinking about where we are now and where we want to be in the future. We’re gathering lots of information to help us make improvements further down the line – this is our 100 days of insight.

What did we do?

In November the theme for the ‘Gap Year’ was ‘culture’. Culture is all about how we do things. There are lots of things that influence organisational culture such as leadership and management, policies and practices, reward structures, working environment, attitudes to taking risks and new ideas. Your own personal values play a large part in our culture too.

We held a culture workshop for managers and a series of fully booked ‘culture cuppas’ with staff. It was great to see how much interest there was from staff – possibly due to the promise of cake! We’d originally planned 2 sessions but held 6 in total, and a further session at Palatine. It was really pleasing to see how many staff wanted to be involved and help us work out what we all want YHN’s culture to be like.

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We asked staff to think about their own personal values

Our personal values We asked staff to think about their own personal values and the value they create at YHN. The aim of this was to understand staff as individuals and what values are important to them. This will help us develop a new set of core values that staff can relate to.

Appraising manager’s top values were: • Have a positive attitude • Bring passion and energy to what you do • Support and empower staff • Be creative and inspire • To be happy in their work Staff top values were: • To be happy at work and feel valued • To be helpful and supportive to both colleagues and customers

• To bring passion and energy to what you do • To be creative • To empower staff

New ideas – and what prevents them We want staff to be able to put forward their ideas to help shape the way we do things.

To understand how receptive YHN is to ideas we asked both at the manager session and at several of the culture cuppas for all staff to stand up. They had to sit down if they had not had an idea. Approximately 90% remained standing. Then we asked a second question – had that idea ‘happened’? If not staff had to sit down. This reduced numbers dramatically with approximately only 5% left standing – this was disappointing.

We asked staff what prevents ideas within YHN: Manager’s feedback

Staff feedback

• Technology

• Communication

• Money

• Attitude

• People

• Finance

• Fear

• Workload

• Those resistant to change (described as dinosaurs)

• Technology

Staff gave us lots of ideas of how we can encourage more suggestions – mainly surrounding time. Staff need to be given time to develop and see ideas through, and this is something we will be actively encouraging.

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www.yhn.org.uk

Team YHN Understanding our culture To understand our current culture we mapped it out into three sections.

1 Behaviours – how we do things at YHN, what a great day looks like and what a bad day looks like.

2 Outcomes – what happens as a result of our behaviour.

3 Enablers and blockers – why do we behave this way, what influences us, what stops us from doing this differently?

Step one – Behaviours A good day at YHN is when technology runs smoothly, when staff have the right time to do their job properly, and when staff aren’t off sick. On a good day there’s a buzz around the place and there is a real sense of achievement. Happy staff equals happy customers.

However there is a feeling that we follow policy to the rule, and that there’s an attitude of ‘that’s the way it’s always been done’ and that we are reactive to situations, almost firefighting, rather than being proactive. This can leave staff feeling frustrated, unmotivated and like they’re always trying to catch up.

Step two - Understanding the impact of our behaviours

Step three - What influences different behaviours

Managers suggested we don’t embrace new ideas because of the difficulty to get them agreed which was echoed in the staff sessions – we are just plodding on and doing what we need to – and that we don’t have the time to actually develop ideas.

This impacts on the customer experience.

Managers and staff both said we are stuck in a rut with a culture of ‘we’ve always done it this way’, a fear of change. Staff said they often raised ideas but then did not receive feedback making them feel they aren’t listened to.

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There was a real sense that people are important; both staff and customers.

Changing our current culture Solutions suggested by staff to encourage a more positive culture included: • Introducing a recognition scheme for staff • Allowing time for innovation and initiative, and removing bureaucracy to help make ideas happen • Challenging poor behaviour and rewarding good behaviours • Empowering managers /staff to take decisions • Using modern technology to help productivity • Reviewing processes to ensure we are efficient

What did we find out?

Lots of positive comments came out of the culture cuppas and manager session.

Staff value the role YHN plays in the local community by supporting customers, and generally think YHN is a good employer

Gap Year

which supports staff training and development and encourages work life balance. Some staff said YHN feels like a family and there is a good comradery which they enjoy when they come to work. There was a real sense that people are important; both staff and customers.

However when we asked about how we ‘do things’ and what our current culture feels like, the responses were less positive. Staff are anxious about job security and to understand the direction the organisation is going.

We asked staff what our culture should look like and how we should do things in the future. Feedback was positive words such as ‘energy’, ‘innovation’, ‘happy’ and ‘fun’ were used.

What now?

We’ll use the feedback from the staff and manager sessions to help develop our new core values. The discussions will help us understand what we need to do to address our current culture and help improve the way we ‘do things’ at YHN. We’d like to thank everyone who came along to give us their feedback.

If you weren’t able to attend any of these events there’s still an opportunity to provide your feedback – just make sure you complete the staff survey to share your views!

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Tour guides take on productivity

The tour guides that took part:

We wanted to know what impacts on your dayto-day productivity. How much does the office environment affect you? Are you bombarded with meeting requests? Do you feel a slave to your inbox?

A number of brave tour guides and their colleagues agreed to trial some simple ideas, such as switching off email notifications and blocking out time for meetings/work. ...read on for a transcript of their discussion, a lot of interesting points are made!

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Jill Hayton – Business Strategy Mark Pearson – Regeneration Claire Lyddon – Concierge Catherine Flood – Strategic HR Lisa Barron – ICT Christine Jackson – Tenancy and Estates Joanne Giles – Repairs and Maintenance Joy Gordon – Tenancy and Estates Angeline Rochford-Briggs – NFS

The day job.. what helps you What is the 'Golden Rule'? organise your day?

Joy: My days are always fast moving, dealing with planned work but also responding to anything that comes across my desk. It can go from dealing with a tenant who had been threatened with a gun to fixing the air con and Xerox machine (twice in one day). I use the normal systems like Outlook and calendar…I knew I would struggle with the ‘Golden Rule’ but I gave it a go! I’ll tell you about that later.

You should expect your colleagues to read any email you send them within one working day, but no sooner than this.

The new Golden Rule means that we all have 24 hours to read any new email, so there’s no need to keep checking to see if something important has arrived. Colleagues who trialled the Golden Rule checked emails only twice a day and turned off email notifications.

For more information on the Golden Rule and keeping your email under control click here.

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Gap Tour Year Guides Joanne: I always start my day by opening emails and action flag or delete those that need no action. I know the big pieces of work that I have coming up and I block out my calendar to allow time to complete these.

Kanbanize, or Kanban, is a way of managing work/ projects, working together with colleagues so you can see what needs to be done that week.

Claire: I check my emails and my workload which is on SharePoint at the beginning and the end of the day.

Angeline: At NFS we also use similar processes to plan our day. We also work with a lot of other systems such as Prisym, DRS, Replica, Northgate and many other databases to plan our day ahead. Sometimes our planning needs to be done the night before to ensure the early shift are ready to go in the morning with their deliveries.

Christine: I am usually at my desk at 7am each day. I really value the quiet time in the office and keep tasks such as administration on my ReAct cases, and letter writing for this time, when I can complete them uninterrupted. It’s also useful to be able to carry out visits early in the morning, before customers go out to work or on the school run. I’ve found that it’s a particularly successful time to do pending gas warrant visits, catch the tenants at home, and sort it out on the spot. I organise my calendar to minimise travel time.

Catherine: Me too, I like to have a list of ‘to do’s.

The group: Hang on…priorities… have we mentioned the tea round, ha ha?!

The 'Golden Rule' . .yay or nay?

Lisa: Staff in IT use a range of systems. Generally there is no typical day but to help staff understand what everyone is doing we use Kanbanize.

We also have 15 minute stand-up meetings to give everyone the opportunity to discuss what they are doing and identify that week.

Jill: We use Kanban too. I’m not the biggest fan but it does mean that all the team can see what we have to do by the end of the week. I still like a good old paper to do list though.

Mark: I liked this part of the task. It helped me concentrate on the task in hand. However, someone in my team had mixed feelings about this. Overall he felt that it is an effective tool but it depends on the types of tasks you need to carry out that day. Another found it difficult too as she was waiting for information to meet deadlines and felt it hampered her productivity. A different colleague also felt the service needed to be responsive so struggled with this a bit, but gave it a good go.

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Gap Tour Year Guides Claire: My manager took part in this and found she picked up telephone to speak to people rather than rely on emails. Another team member said it helped her concentrate on writing a report as she had turned the notifications off. You have to be careful though not to miss your meetings which nearly happened to me!

The Right to Buy and Leasehold team also found this difficult as they manage 4 inboxes and respond to customer enquiries. Their tip was to skim over emails and flag those that need a response and only action those that are an emergency. They felt that in the digital age if we are encouraging customers to contact us via email we need to provide a timely response.

Joy: I agree. I struggled with this part of the task for the same reasons. I tried to have an open mind about this but unfortunately it became more difficult to do my job.

Lisa: I guess it depends on individual roles but I like the Golden Rule – it makes me more productive.

Research shows that it can take people up to 20 minutes to reengage with a piece of work after interruptions. The only problem I found was that this approach is not consistently adopted by the organisation which makes it difficult. One of my colleagues also believed it helped him, saying it helped him discipline himself to respond more quickly and raise tasks in the most appropriate place/resource.

Angeline: This wouldn’t work for us as we already have a standard in place to respond to emails within 4 hours. This has reduced the number of complaints from clients and had a positive impact on reducing the number of direct telephone calls.

Christine: I spoke to my team who had lots of reasons why this wouldn’t work so I tried to provide a few solutions for them. They said they would miss important emails so I encouraged limited access to manage their fear.

For calendar I advised them to use the calendar on Office 365 as it does not flag email notifications and use the people tab for the global address book.

There seems to be a culture of fear that there was no email trail – YHN needs to think about this as staff still feel that they somehow have to prove everything they’ve done/said/ requested. Housing Options staff felt that they could not take part in the trial, as they manage their voids and allocations primarily using email.

Jill: My manager is a big fan of this. But she would also agree that it is only effective if the rest of the organisation changes its culture around emails. It’s much better to go and talk to someone if they are in the office. Skype for business is good for seeing if someone is there and I generally get a quicker response than email.

Catherine: A lot of queries come in to Strategic HR. We are a small team and we would not be able to have our emails off as our customer service would suffer.

Joanne: I agree everyone would need to be on board for this to work.

However, I definitely felt I had more focus on my report when notifications were switched off, so I need to make sure I do that when I am working on something where that level of detail is required, as it’s easy to break the flow and not so easy to get back into it! I will definitely use the Golden Rule again during certain pieces of work.

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Gap Tour Year Guides Your environment.. what's it like?

The Group: The biggest impact on productivity is the time taken to log on in the morning, computers freezing or the intranet going down.

This doesn’t help when work is stored on SharePoint or through Office 365. Grr!!!

Jill: This probably provoked the most discussion in my team. The majority agreed that the office has been a bit neglected and looks a bit drab. It’s not very inspiring at YHN House. Dirty carpets, dirty kitchens, paper used to patch drafts from windows where the seals are broken (it’s been like this for 3 years and is starting to come off the wall) and broken blinds.

The team agreed that they liked to personalise their desk with plants and family photos. I like it as it makes me more comfortable and relaxed.

Joanne: I think the office environment definitely impacts on productivity. We had a good clean up, sorted out cabinets and filing. It had such an impact Technical Services also did the same.

Claire: My team felt that sometimes the office environment can impact on productivity due to conversations distracting you. Sometimes talking to staff onsite can take longer than you think due to mobile signal being poor in the multi’s. It would help to have more private spaces for concentration or more home working options.

We also have a coffee machine in our office which not only has a nice smell when you come in but it saves staff going to the kitchen for their caffeine fix.

It has also made staff feel welcome.

Lisa: We have introduced a comfortable seating area with a large monitor for meetings. This reduces the need to book meeting rooms.

The team agrees this has a beneficial effect as it’s easy to get away from your desk to talk about projects.

Christine: I think it does. I have trouble finding house files – they need tidying, making sure they are all in the right place. I do think an electronic document management system will improve this.

Joy: It would be good to know what we can change as it is not our building so we are pretty limited.

Angeline: Our office environment is generally good. Our office is open plan and staff are encouraged to talk to each other rather than email. On Fridays the team have a collective lunch together in the office and take that opportunity to catch up.

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Gap Tour Year Guides Meeting, meetings meetings?

Joy: I agree with Mark. We are operational staff and most meetings are arranged by externals so unable to take part. But I don’t think this impacted on our productivity.

We asked a number of tour guides to reorganise their calendars and attend meetings only in the morning to see if it had an impact on their productivity.

Jill: The team like the idea of this but those who were part-time felt this would impact on some of their projects as they generally had to fit around other people’s availability. I would agree with our team that we do need to challenge more if meetings are actually needed, especially when staff need to travel to them. Anyone for Skype?

Lisa: Yeah I agree. We need to get better at Skype. I’m not sure if staff know how to use it or access it. I personally can see the value in organising your meetings this way as a good way of working as it limits the number of distractions.

Joanne: I struggled trying this due to pre-arranged meetings but I am generally quite good at blocking out time when I have pieces of work to complete so I’m not interrupted.

Mark: We couldn’t take part in this activity due to the impact on external customers. However the normal practice is for us to book meetings together then to do the paperwork later in the office.

Claire: My colleague trialled this activity. It was really hard as we are a responsive service. It was impossible for staff with shift patterns to take part.

Catherine: I found that this idea was met with the most concern from staff when I discussed it. People felt uncomfortable with asking other people to change their diaries, especially where meetings were with external people.

Angeline: Our meetings are generally client based so we always meet at a time that suits them. Our calendars aren’t busy with any other types of meetings.

Christine: For a while now, I have made a concerted effort to group together appointments on my patch, in an attempt to lengthen the amount of time out of the office per trip out.

So instead of appointments in the morning and afternoon, requiring double travel time and mileage, I only plan patch based activities a maximum of once a day – and where possible I will only travel down to my patch 3 times a week. That’s as long as I can get everything grouped together, and as long as I’m meeting customers’ needs in a timely manner.

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The

Gap Tour Year Guides Things to think about..

Jill: Our team recently changed our project type meetings so that you only attend if you’re directly involved with something and I think that’s helpful. Also the mini ‘huddles’ (short 15 minute meetings where team members share important updates) are an effective way of communicating with your team and help plan for the week.

Mark: Members of my team said they would benefit from mobile technology that would help them see their calendars when they are out and about.

Lisa: Staff can access their emails and calendars when they are out of the office but I guess it’s whether staff have been shown how to do this or not. I think this will probably only work on your personal mobile rather than the work one provided, and data also might be an issue. I guess this reinforces the point earlier that we have lots of different technology available but if no one is aware or knows how to use it it’s pretty pointless. One of my team also suggested we need to explore the possibilities for remote meetings across the organisation as this would save travel time.

Christine: I have already mentioned a few things but I think it is more around changing the culture around why people rely on emails. There are simple processes that we need to look at within our department around managing inboxes as there is duplication of work, storing scanned information and reviewing some of our forms to help staff do their job.

Joy: For me it would be good to move to a document management system as this would create space but also staff will know where to find information. Simple things for staff would be fixing the heating and air conditioning and having printers that work efficiently. More importantly it would be good to have interactive technology in the Customer Service Centres to help customers self-serve more. I would like to say that well supported, happy staff are productive people in my experience.

Joanne: I agree with Joy. We definitely need to improve how we store information. SharePoint and Office 365 have helped to reduce paper work but they are only effective if everyone uses them.

Angeline: I’m sorry but again for our service it comes down to the tools for us to deliver our service and this is largely related to IT. We also need the ability to make decisions quickly.

Simple things like authorising agency staffing – we should be able to authorise up to an agreed amount.

Claire: Could we optimise LMS training courses for mobile devices so more staff can access the training?

Catherine: There are a couple of things that have really improved my productivity that I wouldn’t have really thought about until I had them, such as dual screens and training on pivot tables. Simple but effective!

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Lisa: I think a key message from my team is that we need to make sure that staff understand the value of what they do to the organisation, so that time is focussed on activities that have the highest value for the business.

The Group: The speed and reliability of the technology are big factors in enabling an improvement in productivity.

www.yhn.org.uk

The

Gap Tour Year Guides

So.. what now?

We’ve got a lot to think about in terms of how we work as an organisation and how we can improve productivity. The tour guides have provided valuable feedback and given us a lot of suggestions for improvements. A big thank you to the tour guides and their colleagues who took part.

In terms of the office environment, Ian Gallagher is currently working with an architect who is designing some options for further consultation with staff at YHN House. For staff working at the hubs further decisions will be made after the review of the Customer Service Centres.

We know IT has an impact on people’s jobs. We’ve set up an IT working group to feed directly into the Gap Year project and will update you on actions and progress via the Gap Year site.

The next leg of our Gap Year will be spent ‘understanding our city’ – keep checking the Gap Year site for more detailed information.

page: 20

Helen Garbutt on mobile technologies I’ve been hearing a lot of feedback from the 100 days of insight about the availability and use of mobile technology. I thought it would be useful to share some information on what has been done so far as we do have mobile devices being used within the company.

We currently have 3 services using handheld mobile devices linked to a scheduling tool. This approach is improving service delivery and productivity but also enables staff who spend most of their time out on site to have access to corporate information such as email and the intranet.

Also, the Court Team, Welfare Reform Partnership and some Support and Care Services have been using a number of mobile devices which provide staff access to all of their desk top systems whilst on the move.

Whilst it’s accepted corporately that mobile technology brings efficiencies and it is a direction we should move in, a lot of work has been required to ensure that we get the correct devices for the business and that we are doing things the right way.

When any of us get a device, the experience should be as easy a switching on a desktop computer and starting work. So we had to think about: • Processor speed. There is nothing more frustrating than waiting for things to load up. It was agreed that the devices needed to be the same speed or faster than a desk top computer.

• Tablet or laptop? Whilst many requests have been made by services for tablets, through our testing and pilots we discovered that the ideal was to have the option for both - a device that had a keyboard which could be removed or tucked away whilst being used on site.

• Security was a major consideration. We had to satisfy ourselves and NCC that devices could be remotely wiped should they be lost or stolen.

• Functionality - the devices needed to give access to everything staff have on their desktop. All mainstream programs appear to work as you would expect, with only a few more specialist programmes left to test.

• Will they completely replace desktop machines?

In some cases they will, but users will still require a standard monitor and keyboard to meet Visual Display Screen Users requirements.

• Service requirements and approximate costs were looked at in liaison with Heads of Service to understand the number of devices required per service. The revenue costs alone came to £350,000.

So what next?

Management Team agreed that the device would be a corporate offer, which would limit the number of device types in use within the company and mean that ICT will be able to provide appropriate support.

As transformation was on the horizon it was agreed that the roll out would be a consideration within the transformation program as whilst the devices would give access to desktop services, some services would need significant process changes to get the best efficiencies. Service Managers and Assistant Directors will also need to ensure that the costs of the devices are covered by a business case which will ensure that money is available to replace them when they reach the end of life.

• Screen size. We have had a few different kinds of devices with different screen sizes and ultimately the user gets used to what they have, but we need to ensure that if staff are working with customers that the screen is large enough to be useful but small enough to be carried around on a day to day basis. page: 21

www.yhn.org.uk

U n di an y st cit er e nd th

The

Gaepar YGaeapr Y The

Dinnington Trees, Havannah Horton and Brunswick Village

Hazelrigg

g UNDERSTANDING OUR CITY

Fawdon, Coxlodge, Montagu and Gosforth

East Thorp/ West Thorp and Eastgarth

Montagu West and South Cowgate

Etal Park

Lowbiggin Hareydene

Kenton Bar and North Kenton

Montagu

Newbiggin Hall

Cowgate and Montagu West

Trevelyan Drive Blakelaw, Cragston Park and Radnor Park

Montagu Multis

Hillheads Estate, Stock Green and Westerhope

West Denton, A, B, C, D & E Roads

High Heaton, Benton Lodge, Fairways, Rydal Road Estate South Gosforth

Regent Farm Estate and Grange Estate

West Denton F, G, H & L Roads

Blakelaw, Cragston Park and Radnor Park

Blakelaw Multis

Hilltop House and Denton Park House

Slatyford Estate/ The Lakes and Dewley Road

High Heaton/ Benton Lodge

North Fenham

Hotchpudding and Lindisfarne

Throckley and Newburn

Blackett Ord

Walbottle

Mill House

Avison Street and New Mills Estate

North Benwell Terraces, Gill Street, High Cross and Grainger Park Estate

Millfield Estate

Lower Heaton Multis

Ferguson Lane and Pendower

Old West Den

ton

Lemington

Leazes Court

Queens Court

Milford Road, Scotswood Village and Whickham View

Gill Street, High Cross and North Benwell Terraces

Adelaide House

Bentinck Estate, Jubilee Estate, Rye Hill East and St Pauls Estate Maytree House

Rachael Maughan BKW inc Ashfield Close Estate

Buddle Road, St Johns and Rachael Maughan Estate

Cruddas Park House

City Centre

Rye Hill East and St Pauls Estate Hawthorn Estate

Byker Old Town and Orpington Avenue

North Welbeck Road, Roman Avenue and Walkergate

Melbourne Court

Buddle Rd and Rachael Maughan Estate

Westgate Rd Multis

Eastfield Multis

Heaton Terraces

Shieldfield, House and Multis

Bentinck Estate inc Avison Steet & Diana Street

South West Denton

Daisy Hill, Eastfield Estate, Finchley Court, North Walker, Waverdale

Vale House

Fenham and Two Ball Lonnen

Old West Denton

St Anns and Breamish

Central Walker, Grasmere Avenue, St Anthonys, Grasmere Avenue, Church Walk Multis (Hexham, Titan and Churchwalk) Winslow Estate, Walker Park

Battlefield and City Rd

Proctor Court

Hawthorn and Sycamore Estate

Riverside Dene Addison Grafton Denmark and North/South of Commercial Road

Lancefield Avenue, St Anthonys, Wharrier Street, Walker Park Village, Belmont, Dovercourt Road and Pottery Bank

Houses Low-rise Houses

High-rise Houses Low-rise

Mid-rise Mid-rise High-rise

Understanding the City Who are our customers?

We all have a different experience of the city and we bring those things into work with us.

The vast majority of us will be working in a particular place, or team. And it’s likely we’ll be surrounded by other people quite like us, especially if we work in a behind the scenes job and opportunities to get out and about are quite limited.

In a big place like this, it means that there’s less consensus about some really key things, especially ‘Who is our target customer?’

It’s important for us now as our new Management Agreement means that, in the short term at least, the main ways we can get

more money in – hereby doing the right thing by us and the Council – is by: • Trading more with others via the Furniture Service • collecting more rent by letting more homes quicker So, our Housing Options team has done lots of work to try better understand our customers, and to find the estates where we think we have the best chance of getting more rent in, and quicker. It shows us a lot about our customers, and that we can use data and ‘behaviours’ if we really want to.

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The

We're thinking harder about customers

Gaepar Y

What properties do we manage at the moment and where are they?

There is:

• 26,000 properties for the City Council

• 450 or so for Leazes Homes

For the City Council, we let approximately 2,000 a year.

We manage all sorts of property types, but, in common with other cities like Manchester, Birmingham, there’s quite a lot of high rise properties in there: High rise

Mid rise

Low rise

Houses

Bungalows

3748

3115

3176

13773

1261

We’ve made the tube map to make a nice visual representation of where the estates are, and who the customers are at each of them. It’s not perfect – no estate is ever ‘exclusively’ one type of customer – but it’s enough to give you an idea.

The

Dinnington Trees, Havannah Horton and Brunswick Village

Gaepar Y

Hazelrigg

UNDERSTANDING OUR CITY Fawdon, Coxlodge, Montagu and Gosforth

East Thorp/ West Thorp and Eastgarth

Montagu West and South Cowgate

Etal Park

High Heaton, Benton Lodge, Fairways, Rydal Road Estate South Gosforth

Kenton Bar and North Kenton

Regent Farm Estate and Grange Estate

Montagu

Lowbiggin Hareydene

Cowgate and Montagu West Trevelyan Drive

Newbiggin Hall

Hillheads Estate, Stock Green and Westerhope

West Denton, A, B, C, D & E Roads

Montagu Multis

Blakelaw, Cragston Park and Radnor Park

Slatyford Estate/ The Lakes and Dewley Road

Hilltop House and Denton Park House

High Heaton/ Benton Lodge

Blakelaw, Cragston Park and Radnor Park

Blakelaw Multis

West Denton F, G, H & L Roads

North Fenham

Hotchpudding and Lindisfarne Throckley and Newburn

Millfield Estate

Blackett Ord

North Benwell Terraces, Gill Street, High Cross and Grainger Park Estate South West Denton

Avison Street and New Mills Estate

Old West Denton

Bentinck Estate inc Avison Steet & Diana Street

Ferguson Lane and Pendower

Milford Road, Scotswood Village and Whickham View

Gill Street, High Cross and North Benwell Terraces

Lower Heaton Multis

Byker Old Town and Orpington Avenue

Melbourne Court

Maytree House

Rachael BKW inc Ashfield Close Maughan Estate

Lemington

Shieldfield, House and Multis

Leazes Court

Queens Court

Bentinck Estate, Jubilee Estate, Rye Hill East and St Pauls Estate Adelaide House

Eastfield Multis

Heaton Terraces

Fenham and Two Ball Lonnen

Old West Denton

Walbottle

Daisy Hill, Eastfield Estate, Finchley Court, North Walker, Waverdale

Vale House

Mill House

Buddle Rd and Rachael Maughan Estate

Westgate Rd Multis

St Anns and Breamish

City Centre

Battlefield and City Rd

Riverside Dene

Cruddas Park House

Hawthorn and Sycamore Estate

Central Walker, Grasmere Avenue, St Anthonys, Grasmere Avenue, Church Walk Multis (Hexham, Titan and Churchwalk) Winslow Estate, Walker Park Proctor Court

Rye Hill East and St Pauls Estate Hawthorn Estate

North Welbeck Road, Roman Avenue and Walkergate

Addison Grafton Denmark and North/South of Commercial Road

Lancefield Avenue, St Anthonys, Wharrier Street, Walker Park Village, Belmont, Dovercourt Road and Pottery Bank

Buddle Road, St Johns and Rachael Maughan Estate

Houses Low-rise Houses

Low-rise Houses High-rise

High-rise Mid-rise Mid-rise

page: 23

www.yhn.org.uk

Team YHN IN A NUTSHELL

UNITS

PLACES LIKE

High rise

Areas of deprivation

1168

Walker multis, Queens Court

Low rise

Social rent flats, families

1524

New Mills estate, St Anthonys

Houses

Multi-ethnic, purpose-built estates

4587

Jubilee Estate, Pendower

Mid rise

Older tenants

1517

Leazes Court, Rachel Maughan Estate

Houses

Low income large families in socially rented semis

1517

Daisy Hill, Montague

Low rise

Semi-skilled workers in traditional 1014 neighbourhoods

Heaton Terraces, Regent Farm estate

Mid rise

Pensioners and singles in social rented flats

1074

Breamish House, Throckley Leazes

High rise

Older people in social rented flats

2368

Wardroper House, Riverside Dene

Houses

Families in right to buy estates

4787

Lemington, Throckley, Heaton Terraces

We still manage at least one property in every ward of the city, with the exception of the Byker Community Trust area of course.

age better than others … however, there’s more to it than recent investment spend and condition anyway.

Although all homes got the Decent Homes treatment, some are clearly wearing their

Why we re thinking harder about customers Many of you will know that things started to change about 3-4 years ago, when the introduction of the bedroom tax started to put the pinch on certain parts of the city, often where we have got a lot of older, high rise properties. Other government policies, particularly their support for home ownership and the private rented sector, has weakened our local market dominance in some areas of the city.

So we’ve needed to change our thinking from ‘rationing’ social housing and managing an overstocked waiting list, towards that of a estate agency. The proportion of lettings made to customers in urgent housing need (because of homelessness, overcrowdings, victims of domestic violence) continues to fall: last year 86% of lettings were made to customers in band D – the ‘general’ category.

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The

Gap Year

Other government policies, particularly their support for home ownership and the private rented sector We need to: • improve overall demand for the properties • work out where we could improve demand, or attract a different customer group; and • see which promotional tools work best for different customers.

We concentrated on using the information we already gather about customers, including their behaviour and choices they express. Like

many other teams we gather lots of data about customers behaviour - what they are bidding on, how often they bid etc - sometimes without even realising it. Using this to better effect – basically to get to the most receptive potential customers quicker - could really help us. We already have nearly 6,000 customers signed up and looking for homes in the city, so we started there.

To help us work out where to concentrate we adapted a technique used by companies that manage a range of products or services. It helped us divide that big list of properties we manage into a smaller, more manageable list of estates.

This produced a list of 107 estates, which we’ve spread across a grid depending on their value (a rough estimate of how valuable each of the properties is to the Council), and their vitality (based on things like how many bids the properties get when they become available, how many refusals we get there etc) across this table: The table shows you that the majority of estates we manage are in good health – all those estates to the right are in demand, regardless of their perceived ‘value’.

value estates that are underperforming, then at estates in each of the other three categories where we’re confident we can make more money back.

So what we want to do is concentrate a little more of our efforts on the higher

The estates to the left of the table are less popular at the moment, so that’s where page: 25

we want to concentrate our attention.

And it makes common sense to start with the ones that are worth the most. These are the ones in the top left, moving towards the middle.

Team YHN Are we concentrating on places, or people?

It’s not quite as simple as saying ‘we just need to concentrate on Walker, Newbiggin Hall, wherever – the opportunities are all over the city.

Targeting customers, providing a home that is good value, and a service which is really in tune with their needs, are the things that will make the difference.

Whilst that was going on, our options teams spent some time looking, estate by estate, at the customers we already have living there, or those typically interested in living there. We bought some market research data to compare them to our experience working with customers in those places.

Lots of the people we need to reach are choosing private rented, or other social landlords. Many of them just don’t know Council housing could be for them. Getting to them at the right time and being able to get them a home quicker is where we want to get to.

Now, for all 107 of our estates, we know who our main customer targets are. And that’s invaluable as we enter a time when we have to make choices.

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e Th Y H N

The

ay W

Gaepar Y

Your story clearly and simply identifies how you are going to create value for your customers.

It is an emotive and compelling summary of the difference you make to the lives of your customers. page: 27

We want to create a world where.. . .everyone has a home to call their own.

When you’ve got a roof over your head and a safe, settled, secure place to live, life becomes easier. Importantly, a home doesn’t have to mean ownership or renting from a private landlord.

Social housing is a fantastic opportunity.

We believe..

. .stability is the key to greater success, happiness and wellbeing.

Stability is important when it comes to developing good family and community relationships, doing well at work and making better decisions. That said, we understand that stability isn’t always easy to achieve. We understand that it can be a struggle at times, that it doesn’t take much to knock us off balance and in some cases a little support is greatly appreciated.

We are here to.. . .enable our customers to lead amazing lives in a great city.

Our homes provide strong foundations for those who need one, enabling strong and stable lives to be built in Newcastle. We can provide additional support to those who need it – alleviating some of the daily pressures, making life easier and more enjoyable.

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www.yhn.org.uk

In a world where.. . .circumstances can change quickly.

Life isn’t always predictable, making it difficult to be 100% prepared for what’s around the corner all of the time. Our relationships, employment status, health and finances can all change unexpectedly, presenting significant challenges to overcome.

We are.. . .your everyday hero.

If you only need us to be your landlord – we can do that. But if you need us to do a quick change in a nearby telephone booth and support you as you stumble – we can do that too. More often, we play a role somewhere in between. As an everyday hero, our special powers can be used to make sure that your everyday needs are met on time.

We're for.. . .those who want to stand on their own two feet but like knowing that someone is on their side.

Being independent and feeling in control of our lives is important and many of our customers require very little from us. We provide the house and they make the home. They are perfectly happy and capable of living their lives and we take a backseat – they just need to know that we’ll be there when needed.

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www.yhn.org.uk

We re against.. . .making life any more difficult than it needs to be.

Life is hard enough. We’re here to alleviate anxiety and make life easier for our customers. Not only do we achieve this through what we do - providing a home and support when and where it is needed, how we do things makes life run more smoothly. We work hard to make sure that we’re easy to do business with and every contact counts.

We are.. . .Ready, Amazing, Revolutionary and Energetic.

We provide..

. stable foundations for the home and life you choose.

Whatever life you want to create, you need a base. We provide that platform from which to build. These foundations can be purely physical – they can be the bricks and the mortar but they can also be the strength and stability provided through the support that we offer. Once the launch pad is in place – the direction that you take is all down to you.

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www.yhn.org.uk

We promise.. . .to find ways to say yes we can more often.

We’re here to enable change and improvement. We’re here to set people free not tie them down or hold them back. We’re here to let you get on with your own life in your own home.

Whether this means a new start, simplicity and ease, independence or opportunity, or all of the above, Your Homes Newcastle is here to help you make things happen in whatever way we can. To make them happen right and make them happen first time.

We want to create a world where everyone has a home to call their own because we believe stability is the key to greater success, happiness and wellbeing. We are here to enable our customers to lead amazing lives in a great city.

In a world where circumstances can change quickly, Your Homes Newcastle is your everyday hero. We’re for those who want to stand on their own two feet but like knowing someone is on their side. We’re against making life any more difficult than it needs to be.

We are ready, amazing, revolutionary, energetic and provide stable foundations for the home and life you choose. Your Homes Newcastle promises to find ways to say ‘yes we can’ more often.

Brief summary statement For those who want to stand on their own two feet but like knowing there’s someone on their side – YHN is an everyday hero who provides stability and looks for opportunities to say ‘yes we can’ more often.

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www.yhn.org.uk

p a G The end of Year YHN’s Gap Year Change has become the norm for us, and going forward, it isn’t going to be any different. Every great journey starts with a first step and that’s what our Gap Year has been about. It has given us the opportunity to travel around the business, experience new things, reflect on what works well and also reflect on the things that work not so well. I have been so impressed with you all in terms with how everybody has engaged in this journey. The feedback, comments and the insight that you have provided has helped us to start and map out our future. At times it has been a long and winding road, and at times we have hit a few bumps, but my view is not only have we survived that last year we’ve actually thrived and we have done that as a result of us doing it together and not doing it alone.

What have we been up to since April?

We’ve launched our new induction programme. It’s really important that new staff feel part of something as soon as they join – first impressions do last!

And it is equally important existing staff have the opportunity to refresh their knowledge of YHN and who does what.

r ou g ar in Ye os p Cl Ga

The

some of the things you have said to us have been absolutely brilliant. Successful businesses don’t stand still – they’re constantly improving, innovating and developing, and that’s what we need to do. I am proud so many people can think outside of the box and have the vision and courage to try new things. The People Strategy is slightly different from things we’ve done before. It isn’t a great big thick document that’s been produced to sit on a shelf and gather dust (which is what happens a lot of the time), it will be shared with you separately so you will all get a copy. The strategy points and nudges teams and individuals to help develop themselves so it’s about you taking some ownership for your own development and your behaviours in line with the new values. Those values were developed by you, not be me, not by the Exec team, but by all of you. There is no room for mood-hoovers in the People Strategy!

Each and every one of us needs to challenge anybody that is being a bit of a mood-hoover.

We have also agreed our new People Strategy, which is based on all the feedback that you’ve given us through the Staff Survey and the Gap Year intranet site. I’ve been overwhelmed with the amount of suggestions and ideas that you have come up with – I don’t think you appreciate how good you are at opening your minds and being innovative because

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The

Gaapr Ye The end of our Gap Year So our Gap Year has come to an end. We’ve learnt so much and I feel that we are in the right place for change. You might remember a year ago I said that I didn’t have a magic wand; I still don’t have a magic wand and I’m not a fairy godmother. I don’t have all of the answers and actually I’m more interested in listening to what you have to say rather than listening to my own voice. Well thank goodness for that because you’ve had absolutely loads to say! I’ll admit that some of it was difficult to hear. But it was really important to me to give you all the opportunity to have your say, and it remains a priority for me that you keep engaged with us.

You know how passionate I am about the right culture, and I think the new values really hit the spot.

The fantastic tour guides have done some great work to flesh these out and have added the sorts of behaviours we should be demonstrating if we are living and breathing the values. This will make it lots easier to bring the values to life and to make them part of our everyday job role. I really hope that you feel inspired and as excited about them as I do because after all you came up with them – these are your values.

We developed a new set of values because what we do and how we do it has to feel and be different to what it has been. The values should instil into us the desire to keep changing and not to stand still, to be constantly thinking about our customers and their needs and their wants. Everybody that works at YHN is an ambassador for YHN and you should be proud of the business and proud of what your contribution is.

People have said we need to escape from tradition and we need to better connect with our customers, and that we should be passionate explorers in pursuit of excellence. I know we may have some cynics who we need to convert who’ll be sitting today saying “heard it all before…seen it all before…nowt every changes…”. But I tell you what, I don’t give up easily, I’ll keep going and I’ll keep working with you to persuade you and I’ll make it my mission to bring you on board. But if there is anybody out there who is thinking “ah here we go again” I’ll lay down a challenge; come and see me and we’ll have a conversation. Put me to the test to see if I can change your mind in an hour, and I mean that sincerely.

One thing that we have all learned the last 12 months is the one size fits all approach doesn’t really work.

We have some customers who need more support from us than others, we have some customers who are incredibly self-sufficient so we need to do more so that they can do more themselves. It’s all about what works best for the customer at their point of need, not ours. We have a wonderful opportunity to encourage customers to actually aspire to better things, they don’t have to be so dependent on us.

We collectively need to find a way to shrink the reality gap that is what is now and what could be the future. We need to be as efficient as we can without losing that personal touch for the times and the people that need it, and we have to do that together.

Times are challenging and we will all need to support each other through the next few years. And it won’t just be a couple of years or minor adjustments and half-measures that we have in front of us. Our stakeholders and our customers are expecting a profound transformation from us.

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www.yhn.org.uk

We need to amplify our message, get it out there, and tell people how fantastic we are and what we are doing.

Seeing how it’s September, it makes sense to think we’re starting a new school year. The Gap Year has come to an end, and after this event you won’t hear any more about it. We have as much insight as we are ever likely to need. Gathering insight and making some quick improvements and preparing for bigger change is what this was about, although be assured that work is continuing on some of the more fundamental issues. We are about to complete or will be completing some big service reviews in the coming months. These are big decisions that can’t be forced into a 12 month change programme. We have to pick through them carefully and we have to work constructively with the City Council in doing so.

The last year has been a collective process where we have had all had a chance to contribute, be it via a survey, a discussion, or a focus group. There have been lots of ways to become engaged and I think just about everybody has taken that opportunity and contributed to something over the last year. Our tour guides have really lived and breathed the Gap Year and I would like to take this opportunity to personally thank them. They’ve been absolutely fantastic so I do sincerely thank each and every one of them.

Crossing Over Everybody has been incredibly open, honest, and candid with me. You’ve told me it’s a challenging time and I get that. I know people are anxious and nervous but I am really delighted in the way in which the last year has worked out and now I want this coming year and every subsequent year that I am at YHN to feel as distinct and as different and as exciting as this last year. So the theme of this year is Crossing Over. Because, one way or another, we should all expect to experience change over the next year. We may be in a new team, working in a new way, we might have a different role and some of us will be doing something completely different that we haven’t even thought of. To help us keep a check on how the changes are being experienced we are going to pilot something called Hive. This gives staff a constant realtime means of feeding back on how they are feeling at work. Hive is just one of the things that we have in place to support you all but it is important that we all continue to support each other.

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RNING TS

TU

We are going to keep meeting as a big group, perhaps not as the entire workforce at the one time, but wide enough to get the message out and about.

These events will happen towards the end of each term – see how we’re keeping with the school year theme! And they’ll typically have two parts; we’ll have an external speaker or a workshop on the big issues or topics at the time. We’ll call these Turning Points because these are times where we have to be doing something different and have to hit the challenge head on. The second part to these events will be Everyday Heroes. We’ll hear from and about staff who are living our values or have done something worth shouting about via our new staff recognition scheme. Staff can nominate their colleagues and we’ll encourage customers to make nominations too.We’ll do this in short sharp bursts – nominations in the weeks leading up to the events, sharing videos during the week that demonstrate the behaviours and you’ll see lots about it. I want them to have impact and be dynamic because staff recognition is something we have to do well. We’ll have these events in December, March and July they’ll take place on an early Friday afternoon somewhere close to town.

POIN

Let’s live our values Finally, let’s go back to our new values one last time.

I’m asking you to put them at the heart of your work every day. Be Ready, be Amazing, be Revolutionary and be Energetic. These values are just what we need for the challenges coming our way. They’ll help us to be game changing, and should help us get out of bed in the morning and put a spring in our step. Who wouldn’t be excited about being ready, amazing revolutionary and energetic?! They’re just what we need for the challenges coming our way.

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Team YHN: Change is in the air

You Said, We Did

“We need to recognise good

staff”

Completely agree! We ’ll be launching our new staff recognition scheme this autumn.

ne What we’ve hadvioou rs

and be • New values ey rv • Staff su 020 tegy 2017-2 • People Stra ng ei lb and wel • New health e, including ac pl in s ol support to ers. lth First Aid Mental Hea

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m o r f s e c i v r e s r e m o t s Cu their point of view

What we’ve done

• Customer Service workshops • Culture cuppas • Staff Survey • Tour Guides • Gap Year intranet site – feedback and Ideas button • ‘Back to the floor’ exercises with senior managers.

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You Said, We Did

“Can we introduce floor wa the hubs to reduce queuinglkers in an encourage digital use?” d Great idea! We’ve tria lled this, with great success, at the West End CSC where you’ve told us there was a problem with queuing .

The

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What we’ve done

• YHN Way – improving knowledge for new and existing staff

You Said, We Did

Game changers

“Can we extend how we ma properties to include floor rket plans, internal photos etc?”

This is now in place for new build properties and ongo ing it is part of the marketing strategy for wider use.

Tou r Guides

• Staff recognition scheme • Floor walkers at Customer Service Centres • Tour Guides • LEAN Process Mapping.

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Easy to do business with

What we’ve done

• Customer service workshops and events • STAR survey • Unconscious Bias training for all staff • New complaints procedure • Automated customer satisfaction for repairs • Arrangements in place to ensure NFS customers receive an emergency response over Christmas.

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You Said, We Did

“It’s hard transferring cus to the right person when tomers sta don’t list their extension” ff

You’re right – so we ’ve ensured all staff have updated their email signatures and are refreshing Ac tive Directory more often.

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Action is best

What we’ve done

• Young People’s Service working with Sage on homelessness research • Joint working with Mind on managing own wellbeing • Health and Wellbeing – Continuing Excellence for third year running. Recommendation for Ambassador status this year • SHIFT Gold standard • Stonewall – best in the region and no 28 out of top 100 employers.

• Treetop Village – CIH development of the year and shortlisted for Inside Housing award

The

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Proud of our city

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You Said, We Did

“It’s hard transferring cus to the right person when tomers sta don’t list their extension” ff

You’re right – so we ’ve ensured all staff have updated their email signatures and are refreshing Ac tive Directory more often.

The

Gaapr Ye

Proud of our city

The

Bang for their buck

Gaapr Ye

You Said, We Did

“Can we look at a remova l service for Band B?” Great suggestion – this is now in place.

What we’ve done

• Adaptations service – lean process mapping • Resource planning tool introduced for Enquiry Centre • NFS – changes made to both the delivery structure and the shift patterns which has reduced turnaround times for deliveries • Employee relations training has reduced time spent on disciplinaries and grievances.

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