Transforming leadership and behaviour into drivers of Trust, Collaboration, and Performance
The Organisational Need
To achieve Rochdale Boroughwide Housing’s (RBH) ambitious transformation agenda of improving the customer and employee experience while increasing efficiency, enhancing the leadership capability within the Repairs Service was fundamental to success. To effectively manage a transformation of the service, a realignment of the leadership team within Repairs was undertaken to allow for more focus on leadership and people management activities.
Delivering £2.8 million efficiency savings over the next five years
Creating a more efficient and effective Repairs Service which benchmarks favourably with other providers
Improving the customer experience and shifting the mindset toward Repairs across the community
Building a working environment where team members experience a great climate
Shaping the design of the Repair Services based on the voices of customers and colleagues
Implementing robust IT systems supporting customer choice and ease of access
Ensuring transparency of budgets to inform decision making and to encourage increased income from new revenue streams.
About RBH
Rochdale Boroughwide Housing (RBH) is the UK’s first tenant and employee co-owned mutual housing society, with over 12,000 homes throughout the local area.
Leadership Aspirations
The Repairs & Maintenance Service is of vital importance to RBH customers, and they needed to be able to demonstrate skilled and confident leadership of this flagship customer service. Leadership Aspirations for this programme included:
Building the confidence of the leadership team about framing change positively and leading with clarity and positivity
Improving the climate, wellbeing, and morale of the teams across repairs and mark an increase in organisational climate scores
Ensuring that there is a demonstrable change in the mindsets and behaviours amongst the leadership team within the repairs service
Increasing the acceptance of personal and collective responsibility and accountability.
Modelling leadership behaviours that demonstrate Being Proud, Being Ambitious for the service and Being Refreshing
Increasing personal awareness of strengths and areas for development Driving up increased responsibility within the leadership team, following the re-structure of the Repairs service
Our Approach
The Houston Exchange partnered with RBH in creating a customised Leadership Development Programme that would support the leadership team as they delivered the transformation programme within Repairs.
The programme was delivered over 9 months to twenty-five participants in two Cohorts, and comprised the following components:
1. Working with the leadership community to focus the programme content on the leadership behaviours they deemed fundamental to success in their transformation.
2. Regular conversations with the Programme Sponsors to align Workshop content with current and challenges and opportunities within the Repairs Service.
3. Individual and group coaching to support the Workshops; drawing on personal learning plans and insight gained from psychometric and leadership assessments to build a picture of individual strengths and development needs.
4. Providing a practice-based learning process and tools to facilitate learning on the job and to focus leaders on finding ways to track and measure the benefits resulting from the application of their learning.
This resulted in a development programme that:
Addressed genuine business needs and focused on the leadership capabilities shown to make a significant difference in performance
Identified and integrated real-time organisation problems and opportunities into the programme content and coaching sessions
Identified ways of measuring the impact of changes in leadership behaviour in the workplace.
Outcomes Delivered
At the outset of the programme the organisation was seeking to improve performance in the following areas:
increased customer satisfaction
increased engagement by the Repairs Service across RBH
improved climate survey scores across the Repairs teams
Improved perception of Repairs Service across all stakeholders
increased confidence and engagement of the leaders delivering transformational change within Repairs
demonstrable and sustained change in the mindsets and behaviours of the leadership team
RBH values exhibited in everyday leadership behaviours.
By the end of the programme, there was already a recognisable shift in leadership behaviour with leaders focusing more on:
Creating psychological safety within their teams
Developing a greater awareness of the impact of their leadership behaviour and its link to creating a high performing climate
Identifying and managing stakeholders leading to greater efficiencies and effectiveness in problem-solving, managing relationships and influencing and effecting change
Making climate improvement activities a part of how we do things around here. Allowing the leaders within Repairs to identify and track actions relating to organisation-wide climate improvement and engagement.
Next Steps
At the end of the programme the Head of Repairs shared with the participants that one of the key changes she could see was the increased trust between leaders and their teams.
She is confident that by continuing to use what has been learnt on the programme they will continue to be more proactive, taking more time for planning and creating a great climate. Specifically, they are going to maintain their focus on:
Continuing to build on their initial success in sharing knowledge and ideas and breaking down silos to innovate and drive-up efficiency and effectiveness
Continuing the work that has been started in working towards making Repairs a great place to work where everyone is motivated to contribute and achieve at the highest level, and where the RBH values are the cornerstone of employee attitudes, motivation, and expectations
Having more powerful and productive conversations with team members to build a shared understanding of what is expected and how the leader can set team members up for success.
Greater collaboration between teams across Repairs.
2021 Princess Royal Training Award.
Following the leadership development programme, Rochdale Boroughwide Housing has been named as one of forty-six recipients across the UK to receive a 2021 Princess Royal Training Award. This honour is given to employers who have created outstanding training and skills development programmes that have resulted in proven exceptional benefits.
Working with Us
We would like to share the client’s perspective on working with The Houston Exchange team, Catherine Thomson and Arlene Ward, and their view on the factors that made the programme a success. These included:
The flexibility to customise the programme and tailor the content and materials to include real-time organisational issues and challenges which were explored in the sessions e.g., the facilitators took time to understand our new planning and governance structures and included that in the relevant workshops
A recent external accreditation inspection noted the shift in leadership behaviour; moving from “old school” to undertaking climate conversations with their people which has made a notable difference to team climate
The programme was highly credible in the eyes of the participants, and this was evidenced both in their commitment to participate and by the evaluation and feedback gathered throughout the programme
The inclusion of individual and group coaching sessions provided a safe space to challenge and explore sensitive issues, provide personal feedback, and build personal awareness and deeper levels of learning
Vicki Webb Head of Repairs
