Midland Heart

 

Client

With more than 32,000 homes, 1350 staff and an annual turnover of £140 million,Midland Heart is one of the top ten housing and regeneration groups in the country, and the largest based in the Midlands.

 

Brief

Midland Heart asked us to work with its neighbourhood support staff and specialist customer involvement team, to make sure that the group ‘punches its weight’ when engaging and empowering residents and communities.

 

Our objective was to establish customer and community involvement as a core part of Midland Heart’s service and to develop strong working relationships across the organisation to support innovative and effective ways of engaging customers.

 

The training coincided with the launch of the Tenant Services Authority  ‘National Conversation’ which will establish the new standards framework for social housing providers.

 

Activity

To scope the training, we met a group of Midland Heart staff to get their views on training requirements and how they wanted to learn and work with each other.  This helped us to tailor the training sessions to the organisation’s needs.

 

We designed and ran two full-day sessions, including a ‘participation playhouse’ where staff used costumes and props to explore different aspects of the law and best practice on resident involvement.  We also used some lively teamwork exercises to demonstrate the importance of discovering and using people’s talents and working together.

 

To get some payback on the training investment, staff worked together to identify and plan new opportunities to engage residents and empower communities.  Then they unleashed their creative and promotional skills by designing posters and leaflets. The new ideas included a community-run furniture recycling project, a ‘know your neighbours’ event at local library, a graffiti blitz on an estate and a mental health awareness project.

 

The mix of activities and learning styles in the two sessions encouraged everyone to air their views about partnership working with customers and commit to some practical steps to boost this part of their jobs.

 

Midland Heart’s head of housing for Birmingham, Paul Bridges, was delighted with the two sessions. He said:“The training was highly commended by everyone who attended. Customer First is a core value of Midland Heart and is at the centre of what we do. The training challenged us to ensure we are listening to our customers and acting on what they say.”

 

Resident Involvement Officer Ashok Patel was also very pleased with the results, stating: “Getting different staff together helped the group to see how customer involvement benefits our individual roles and the whole business.  It was crucial to have a trainer who we felt comfortable with and who had a genuine passion for the subject. I would definitely recommend The Bridge Group.”

 

To embed good practice and continue building Midland Heart’s commitment to customers and communities, we recommended that a handful of staff who took part in the training form a special ‘action learning set’.  With input from residents, guest speakers and study visits, this groupwill make sure that the learning and improvement carries on.

 

Outcome

The training boosted enthusiasm for and understanding of customer involvement at a time when this part of the business is coming under the spotlight of a new and energetic regulator.  The sessions built some new and strong links between staff in different regions, who pooled their knowledge and skills to kickstart some fresh initiatives.  This tailor-made approach to training definitely achieved its aim of ‘pumping up the passion’ for work with Midland Heart’s residents and communities.

 

Back to top