Success, Satisfaction and Scrutiny:
the Resident Engagement Toolkit
Laying the foundations
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Agree your reasons for
involving residents
What do you want to get out of resident
involvement? What value will it add over a
system where priorities and performance
management are determined largely by staff?
It’s important to ask these questions right at
the very start…and agree upon the answers.
Increased resident satisfaction
Financial savings
Fewer and more quickly resolved complaints
Improved relationships
Compliance with the HCA’s regulatory
framework.
Historically, providers haven’t been especially
good at this. The likes of the Audit Commission
and Housemark have even criticised some
for seeing involvement as an end in itself. But
the evidence we’ve uncovered should mean
providers can identify these links more readily.
Start by considering how involvement
fits with your cooperate objectives.
‘Success, Satisfaction and Scrutiny’
identifies many potential links including:
Case study one:
Becoming an ‘outwards-facing’ organisation
For us involving residents was originally
about becoming a more customer-focused
organisation. In 2007 we were placed
into regulatory supervision. Focusing
on integrating and standardising seven
subsidiary housing associations meant we
were neglecting residents’ opinions.
Our Resident Governance Structure (see page
24) was in place shortly afterwards and remains
the centrepiece of our involvement offer.
Now resident involvement underpins our
strategy to be the best performing large
landlord in the UK (see page 8). Residents
are integral to priority setting and identifying
performance improvements. Involving
residents is also the way we match
production to consumption. It helps us
allocate resources efficiently and make
savings without compromising satisfaction.
Our new board and Strategic Executive
Team appointed in 2009 recognised we
needed to be an outwards rather than
inwards facing organisation. And the key
to achieving this in their eyes was to place
residents at the heart of everything we do.
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