Eastern roundtable - April 2018

Rebecca Clarke, regional manager for London, the South East and Eastern.

With CIH President Alison Inman chairing the session, what quickly became apparent, was that in spite of everyone around the table coming from different types of organisations, there was actually a lot of consensus on not only the current state of the region, but also importantly, the future. One of the key aims of Alison’s presidency was to truly understand where the skills gaps lay currently, where they might be moving forwards and how we can really champion the leaders of tomorrow – her work for CIH Futures being paramount here.

CIH Apprentice Ashley Taylor of locally based CHP opened the day sharing her experiences of coming into sector. After stumbling across the apprentice role whilst still in a teaching job, Ashley now says she would never look back and actually enjoys explaining to her friends exactly what she does. Had it not been for a family member already working at CHP though, Ashley would have never known about the role. Do we as a sector need to think more about how we promote ourselves to attract the best talent to the fantastic roles and careers that we have available? Ashley and others around the table would say a resounding YES! As Alison articulated, ‘how do we make ourselves look sexier?’

So many around the table spoke a bout how they first came into housing and the power of good role models and mentors, people who were willing to help. There are so many benefits to telling the stories of your housing career, to help support the next generation coming through. It is these real life stories that will help to capture the imagination and everyone agreed we need to “make it real”. We should be really proud to work in this sector, so let’s shout about it more.

So what are the key issues for the Eastern region?

• Skills gaps (particularly around development and finance)
• Lack of leaders in the sector (number of CEOs retiring, stepping down, moving on, leaves a massive gap to fill all at once)
• Attracting the right talent (do we need to do more to attract people from out of region?)
• Or… are we failing if we don’t develop our own? Some of the best staff can actually come from within. Everyone agreed that more needs to be done with our frontline call centre staff. They have the best knowledge and many of hem want to progress into other roles. Why do we make it so difficult and have a preoccupation with looking externally? The answers could be right under our noses, don’t be scared to look there!
• Always look to upskill and give exposure. Let us all encourage a culture where staff can be brave enough to apply for these roles and ask for opportunities to showcase their ability and learn
• Not working together enough to provide opportunities
• Can we work in partnership to develop leaders of tomorrow by letting them attend board meeting, shadow other organisations, be mentored by other leaders across the sectorRetaining talentParticular problem for local authorities with graduate programmes
• Pay a big factor hereTaking the final steps in ‘senior’ roles being made too tricky for people.

How can we provide more support around governance, treasury and strategic thinking to bring on the leaders of tomorrow?

• Money/ the lure of London
• Inconsistencies in the sector make it difficult
• financial director at Colne leaving, can get double the money for half the stock size in London, can’t compete
• Need to do more to encourage work/life balance this is a big factor for people looking to come home or move out of London
• Stop referring to “falling into housing” – dare we say it we had a mini pledge from attendees to stop saying the dreaded phrase “I fell into housing”. No, there was a proactive choice and we have all stayed, so there must be something to it right?