THE pandemic has taught us a lot of lessons about resilience and adaptability. Heather Barron talks to one North-East organisation that is using those lessons to build on its future commitment to its staff and its customers

Before we knew what Covid-19 was, and, ultimately, faced a nationwide lockdown in March 2020, believe housing was already looking at a working model that would enable their staff to reduce time spent in, and travelling to and from, the office.

“We’d literally just prepped ourselves for our office-based staff to do a mixture of home- and office-based work; for our neighbourhoods teams to work within their community with customers who are part of their patch; and our repairs teams to go direct to jobs from their homes,” explains Alan Smith, believe housing’s Executive Director of Investment, Growth and Performance.

“We had already changed our office set-up to introduce a more collaborative working space, and we had invested in the right technical equipment. The pandemic accelerated our plans, and, although it was a forced situation, it enabled us to understand that it could be done.

“It also generated well-being conversations with staff that became an important part of understanding the challenges that everyone was wrestling with, helping us to give flexibility wherever we could, and to support our colleagues through lockdown.”

This is reflected in their recent Culture Audit, which generated very positive feedback from staff who feel that the organisation’s culture aligns with their own personal values and expectations.

With the growing need to respond to environmental challenges, believe housing is already committed to investing in sustainable housing.

Last year, they made an environmental pledge, promising to work with customers and ensure that everything the organisation does is geared towards a low-carbon future.

The commitments include supporting community environmental initiatives and projects to improve neighbourhoods, moving to low-carbon vehicles, working with customers to reduce fuel poverty while cutting emissions, and using sustainable or recycled materials wherever possible.

Alan said: “We’ve already shown how seriously we’re taking our environmental responsibilities by becoming the first housing association to achieve the Carbon Neutral International Standard. We want to keep building on that achievement and lead the way in reducing the impact of housing on climate change.”

Their environmental contribution has also been addressed as a result of changing the work culture.

“Having people working from home, and not on the road as much, is a definite positive in terms of a reduction in air pollution, but also for mental health,” explains Alan. “The time that they save from being in the car could be spent going for a walk, or doing something else that suits their needs.”

This concern for mental health extended to their customers when the pandemic presented an “unprecedented challenge that we’ve faced as a generation”, and the organisation set up a suicide prevention team. In recognition of their work, believe housing’s Jayne Adamson was presented with an MBE in the Queen’s birthday honours list, which she accepted on behalf of the team.

As a Premier Partner in The Northern Echo’s Level Up campaign calling on the Government to recognise the case for greater investment in the North-East, Alan says that their mission statement – We believe in life without barriers – is a good fit with the government’s levelling up agenda.

“We know it is a really ambitious mission statement, but it has been our one constant since we came together in 2015,” he says. “We’re not just about building and repairing houses – we’re about supporting our communities and our places.

“We’re an area that’s suffered from inequality over decades, and we’d like to think that the Levelling Up White Paper is about sustained opportunities. Not just one-off pots of funding that we’ve seen before, but about building life opportunities – and we think that fits with our wider agenda.”

As a provider of social housing, it’s not just about building affordable houses, but about building strong, sustainable communities.

“Having a good-quality, warm, safe home is very important and there are huge amounts of benefits just from that, but on its own that’s not enough. Strength of community and community pride is what it’s really about, and that wider role of access to good education, good health, employment, and good facilities. That’s where people want to live; that’s what we all want to be part of; that’s what we’re trying to create.”

believe housing has recently welcomed its 600th new customer, at one of their developments at Newton Hall, on the outskirts of Durham. During the pandemic, they raised money to move the business to the next level of investment in new homes, and will easily achieve their ambition to deliver 700 new homes by 2022, and to build another 1,250 homes by 2026.

Alan says: “We’re actively working on a new programme of development alongside significant investment in our existing homes, some of which is around the de-carbonisation agenda, and some around place regeneration. We’re trying to blend our new homes, not as stand-alone developments, but to integrate them into some of our existing communities as well.

“Although our core operating area is Durham, we are looking at one or two new areas where we see some potential, like Darlington, where there is a lot of investment in new jobs with the Government decentralising some of the civil service jobs.”

As part of the government’s home ownership affordability approach, where people want to own their own homes but may not be able to afford a deposit, the award-winning organisation has created Rent-to-Buy properties, now totaling around 250. By paying a lower rent for five years, the customers are enabled to save, with the option to buy their house after the qualifying period.

As a result of this continued expansion, the workforce has also grown. They now employ nearly 600 people in a whole range of professions, including gas engineers, joiners, plumbers, Health & Safety professionals, lawyers, and accountants.

“We have a huge range of people that work within and across our organisation, and we’re trying to connect with schools very early on,” says Alan. “That will help us going forward because, by providing employment opportunities, it connects us with our communities, and makes people aware of the work that we do.

“As a great believer in growing our own talent, employees are supported through apprenticeships and training programmes. As the challenge to recruit becomes more difficult, we are becoming increasingly focused on the potential of growing, supporting, and retaining our talent, and seeing people positively benefit from being a colleague at believe housing.”

Alan has been with believe housing since its inception in 2015, joining as part of the team dealing with the Durham County Council transfer of ownership of its housing stock to the County Durham Housing Group, as it was then.

His greatest satisfaction comes from not only being part of the team that established the organisation, but by the pace and the speed at which they’ve moved to try and continue to develop their role and their offer.

At their first Innovation Academy in September, they brought together more than 200 staff to talk about what they’re hearing from customers on a day-to-day basis: what problems and challenges they are facing, and how they can be addressed.

“What we’ve created in a relatively short space of time is incredibly satisfying – and I speak for the whole team,” he says. “We’re coming out of the pandemic trying to better understand what our customers want, and, because of that, rather than just make an offer, we can make an offer that people really have asked us for.”

  • Any business interested in becoming a partner of The Northern Echo’s Level Up campaign, please contact Pete Noble at pete.noble@localiq.co.uk