Wellbeing at work in housing - tackling the disconnect between CEOs and frontline workers

In November 2019, I took over from the great Jim Strang as president of the Chartered Institute of Housing, and the following February I formally launched my presidential campaign to #shinealight on mental health in housing.

I’ve shared very publicly how my family history made me realise the importance of talking about mental health. Housing can be a testing sector at the best of times, challenging the wellbeing of both colleagues and customers. I already knew that I wanted to use my presidency to raise awareness of mental health in housing, raise our game in the profession, and raise cash for Mind. But I had no idea in February just how timely this campaign would be.

By the end of March, it was clear that 2020 was going to be a year that tested us like no other. The experience of leading a housing association through a pandemic and national lockdown has been exhausting and inspiring. It’s revealed the breadth and complexity of what we do; the strength of our partnerships; the commitment and creativity of our colleagues. But the wear and tear on colleagues has been clear to see, as they weather the affect of COVID-19 on their own families and continue to do their best for our customers.

The future of our housing profession depends on being able to attract younger colleagues, and support them to avoid ‘burnout’ and retain the compassion that’s a critical element of our work. We’d already planned to investigate the wellbeing of younger housing professionals as part of the #shinealight campaign, and Jo Richardson – a leading academic, as well as CIH vice president – had offered to take on the research. In view of the unprecedented situation, we agreed to broaden the scope of the project, to include housing chief executives, and those working in the homelessness sector, alongside young housing professionals. I’m grateful to Homeless Link, Campbell Tickell and the GEM programme for access to their networks.

The research findings of Wellbeing at Work in Housing are striking. There’s so much common ground across the four groups we covered, particularly the concern for customers that came through in all four groups. But there are also issues that affect each group specifically: the uncertainty about future careers for young colleagues in housing organisations, and the even greater anxiety of short-term employment contracts that reflect the unstable funding in many homelessness organisations. For chief executives leading housing and homelessness organisations through lockdown, the dominant concern with reference to both colleagues and customers/clients was ‘are we doing enough to keep people safe?’.

But despite the large amount of common ground, the researchers found a disappointing disconnect between leaders and younger, customer-facing colleagues. The CEOs were acutely conscious of their responsibility to support colleagues through the difficulties and uncertainties of lockdown, and had set up systems and arrangements to make support available. Despite this, many of their young colleagues felt unsupported and anxious.

As we look ahead to the prospect of weeks – or months? – more national restrictions, we need to learn from last year’s experiences. At the end of January, we’ll be bringing together some of the research participants to consider how we could do better. Campbell Tickell have kindly offered to host a round table to address one of the key questions posed by this research: how can we tackle the disconnect between CEOs’ good intentions and frontline teams’ experience? The research has already highlighted some possibilities, and we’ll be building on what we know already to produce further recommendations for the sector.

We’ve always known in housing that we’re at our best when we’re working in strong partnerships to deliver for customers/tenants. We need to make sure the partnerships within our organisations are working as well as the ones that draw us together across our diverse sector.

You can find more information about shine a light, and copies of both the long and short Wellbeing at Work in Housing reports on this dedicated page.