Posted on August 17th, 2022 by Elaine Davies
The communal garden at the Gateway has been refurbished and re-opened after two years of restricted access.
A BBQ and social event took place to mark the reopening and it was attended by customers and colleagues involved with the refurbishment.
We worked with construction company Seddon to refurbish the garden and works included repainting fences, planting shrubbery and repainting garden furniture. Seddon funded the works as part of its 125th birthday celebration.
Customers have also set up a gardening group taking it in turns to ensure the plants are watered and the garden is maintained.
Housing Support Manager at the Gateway Gail Cooper said: “The garden is already becoming a social hub for residents. Because of their involvement with the refurb, they have taken extra pride in ensuring it’s maintained and looked after. It makes a huge difference to the accommodation, adding a refreshed atmosphere.
“Communal spaces are vital to delivering a safe and inclusive environment to our residents. covid was challenging for everyone, particularly those vulnerable with poor mental and physical health. The loss of this outdoor space meant residents were often left feeling isolated and cooped up inside, so to have it refurbished and reopened is huge boost for Gateway residents.”
The garden was closed in 2020 due to safety regulations as a result of the covid pandemic and remained closed until recently.
Seddon sourced materials and provided people from its painting division to work alongside other Seddon, Citizen and Gateway staff, as well as residents to bring the garden to fruition.
Business Unit Director at Seddon Rob Moore said: “It’s been great to see this project progress. We care greatly about creating places that add value to the communities that they serve and the garden at the Gateway is a great example of this. Our teams enjoyed working alongside the residents and hearing their stories.
“Completing a refurb is always rewarding but getting to know the end users and helping to make it a home for them makes it even more worthwhile.”
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Posted on August 15th, 2022 by Elaine Davies
Victoria Roden will be joining our Senior Leadership Team (SLT) as Director of People on Tuesday 27 September.
Victoria joins us from whg, a Housing Association that provide homes across the Midlands, where she has worked for the last ten years.
In her current role as Assistant Director of People Services, Victoria’s primary focus is to ensure the organisation’s values are upheld through their people. Victoria has led on the development and implementation of a four-year People Strategy and an Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Action Plan.
Victoria said: “I am really excited to join Citizen. I have already been made to feel really welcome by Gary and the members of SLT and the People Team I have already met. I am looking forward to getting to meet lots of people and learn as much as I can from them about Citizen.
“Working for an organisation with a strong social purpose is really important to me. Citizen has a great reputation for being an ethical organisation, which resonates with my values – doing the right thing. On a personal basis, I feel ready for a new challenge and a change.”
She said: “I can’t quite believe where the time has gone, but I now have over 20 years experience in HR / Organisational Development (OD), spanning a range of sectors. I have worked in all three sectors, private, public and the third sector. I started my HR career with Sainsbury’s back when HR and OD were referred to as Personnel and Training and moved into housing in 2005. Prior to working at whg, I worked in a Human Resources role at Sandwell Homes. Over the years I have seen lots of change, mainly due to the modern tools and technology being available but also in the way in which HR is viewed. It has definitely evolved to be an integral part of any organisation.”
Our Chief Financial Officer Gary Booth said: “Our Director of People role is an exciting and challenging role – from implementing a vision for a truly modern People function to delivering operational and cultural change to ensure colleagues feel valued, skilled, and motivated to help Citizen achieve its business strategy objectives.
“I’m really looking forward to Victoria joining our Senior Leadership Team and working with colleagues right across the business to help Citizen to be an employer of choice.”
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Posted on August 9th, 2022 by Elaine Davies
We’re delighted to announce that Oliver Kemp has been offered a permanent position as Receptionist in our Facilities Team.
Oliver joined us in January on a work placement as part of the Government’s Kickstart Scheme.
The Kickstart scheme was introduced last year and provides funding to employers to create jobs for 16 to 24-year-olds on universal credit and who are at risk of long-term unemployment.
Oliver said: “I’m really happy to have been offered a permanent role. The Kickstart Scheme has given me a brilliant opportunity for me to gain work experience.
“I found out about my new role through Laura Folan, who was my line manager while I was working in the Learning and Development Team. Since my Kickstart Placement was coming to an end, I saw it as a perfect opportunity to learn more skills and secure a permanent role.”
Oliver said he is meeting more colleagues in his new role and enjoys helping out where he can.
He said: “It’s different to the role I had in Learning and Development. There is much more face-to-face interaction in this role, which I am really enjoying. I am also earning a little more with this role which is always a nice touch.
“I would especially like to thank Laura for giving me the opportunity on the Kickstart Placement and I’m grateful she told me about this role too!”
Our Senior Learning and Development Advisor Laura Folan added: “Oliver has been a fantastic addition to the Learning and Development Team and has made a great impression on both me and the team. He lives and breathes Citizen values and I’m so happy that he has secured a permanent position with us.
“The Kickstart Scheme is a brilliant way for young people to gain work experience and it’s been a great springboard for Oliver.
“I’m really happy that Oliver has been offered this permanent position. I know he’s going to do a fantastic job and will be an asset to the Facilities Team!”
Congratulations on your new role Oliver!
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Posted on August 5th, 2022 by Elaine Davies
A new Customer Engagement Team is being set up as part of our Customer Service Team to make our engagement with customers easier.
The team will focus on customer voice, all customer engagement activity and will support teams across the business to engage with customers.
We want to listen to our customers, find out what isn’t working so well and what’s good about what we do. Feedback from customers should drive how we improve what we do and our services.
We are creating this new team because acting on customer voice is one of our main objectives in our 2020-23 business strategy in our looking out for our Citizens pledge. Customer engagement can take many forms – whether that’s actively seeking feedback through satisfaction surveys, learning from complaints or direct involvement of our customers in scrutinising our services.
Our Chief Operating Officer Mads Nelson said: “Our new Customer Engagement and Voice team is being created because listening to our customer voice is the right thing to do. We will be facing increased regulatory scrutiny under the proposals set out in the Social Housing Regulation Bill, which will place consumer regulation on the same footing as economic regulation. It has always been important for housing associations to listen and respect their customers and this will now be tested through greater regulatory powers.
“We have always promoted customer engagement and this new team will bring back an increased focus on raising the profile of our customer voice. Customer engagement is everyone’s responsibility, and the team will be there to provide advice and support on how we can improve engagement across the organisation – whether this is through our Communications Team, Operations or Development teams.
“We have lots of ways that our customers can have their voice heard – the key will be listening to it and acting upon feedback. We want to give customers opportunities to work in partnership with us, so we are focused on providing a great customer service.”
One of the team’s first priorities will be developing engagement plans for tower blocks to find ways to engage with residents living there to develop plans.
Mads added: “There are currently customers in certain demographics that we are not reaching, so we want to carry out work to reach them and speak to them about their experience.
“It’s so important we listen to our customers because we want our organisation to do well, and we want to provide a good service.”
Ruth Arnott will join Citizen as Head of Customer Engagement and Voice in August.
Ruth said: “I’m excited to be heading up this new team that will help us make sure that the customer voice is a golden thread that runs through everything we do.
“Our customers are the experts at living in our homes and can provide us with a perspective that we as housing professionals don’t have. The customer voice is key to making sure our services are appropriate, efficient and effective. The recent Social Housing Regulation Bill has put a spotlight on making sure that all housing associations are engaging with their customers and I’m really looking forward to driving this forward.”
Roles in the new team will be advertised on the jobs section of our website.
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Posted on August 3rd, 2022 by Elaine Davies
We’re continuing to work on our full fibre broadband project and are working with three companies to roll out full fibre broadband to flats.
This will be of great benefit to our customers, enabling them to access high speed broadband connections.
This type of broadband is 12 times faster than the UK average and the upgrade will ensure that our customers have access to speeds of up to 900Mbps.
Previously we announced we were working with Hyperoptic and now we are also working with Openreach and City Fibre specifically on schemes to upgrade our properties to high-speed broadband.
This roll out is funded by the broadband companies who are investing due to the Government aiming for 85 per cent of homes to have access to a gigabit broadband connection by 2025. This means speeds of one gigabit per second.
The current focus is on properties in Birmingham and Coventry, and we have also entered into agreements to upgrade properties in Worcester and Solihull. A recent agreement has also been reached with another company which will see fibre cable upgrades to some of our properties in Hereford.
Building Surveyor Macauley Williams said this is his first big project since joining Citizen and said it’s an incredibly important thing to do.
He said: “I have been working closely with fellow surveyors and contractors (BT Openreach, City Fibre and Hyper Optic) in order to deliver fibre optic cabling into homes of Citizen.
“During lockdown people started to see the importance of being provided good internet as some would need to work from home or would need to use the internet to enjoy life at home while we were all locked down. Therefore, everyone can understand having proficient internet is an essential in this day and age and this project will allow that for our customers.
“My primary role throughout this project involves me assessing and analysing risk assessments and cable lay outs sent over by contractors to make sure they meet health and safety standards. As a new surveyor to Citizen this project has been valuable in allowing me to extend my knowledge and gain a better understanding of the process of carrying out works for future projects.”
Around 18,500 of our customers are due to benefit from the upgrade.
Our Portfolio Manager Liz Bloomfield said it was important that we secured a wayleave agreement ahead of the works. This agreement gives the telecommunications company the rights to lay and install cables on privately owned land and property, and also gives us the ability to ensure that any works that are carried out in our blocks meet health and safety requirements.
She said: “It meant that from early on we were able to work with the providers so they could do what they needed to our homes in a way that was agreeable to us.“This project is so important for our customers to ensure they have internet access that supports their needs, and Citizen are helping to facilitate that be enabling the cabling upgrades. In addition, our money advice team will be advising customers that they can enquire with the broadband providers about social tariffs and discounted packages that may be available to them.”
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