Welsh Housing Awards winner 2023

Young achiever in housing

Carys was nominated as Young Achiever in Housing by her team at Taff Housing.

Who is Carys?

Carys Wiggins is a star.

In 2022, she was receiving her A-level results, now she is leading our work on marketing and communications as part of a sponsored degree with Network75.

Thrown in at the deep end at Taff, she has fearlessly yet humbly grabbed hold of the challenge and is excelling through a five-year undergraduate training programme to achieve her BA Hons in Communication and Marketing, splitting her time between university and work at Taff.  Carys has quickly become a highly valued colleague, leaving an indelible positive impression on her peers and our tenants.

What is her story?

From the day she joined Taff Carys has blown us away with her amazing and inspirational approach to delivering tenant focused services. She has made a huge impact not only on tenants, but also on her colleagues and the wider business. From the outset, Carys has been willing to learn, yet not shied away from sharing her own ideas on how we can do things better. Using her initiative, she has delivered communication campaigns on big issues such as gas safety, damp and mould and International Women’s Day.

Her positive ‘can do’ attitude has led to us driving real improvements in how we communicate with tenants and other stakeholders. Although Carys is one of youngest members of the team at Taff, she is making a big impact. She is creative and recognises that how we communicate is as important as what we communicate. She runs all our social media and is helping us find new and engaging ways to communicate widely to our stakeholders. She is in high demand across Taff, with colleagues seeking to access her expertise and advice.

Working collaboratively and effectively with different colleagues from across all departments, she has led on a number of communication campaigns aimed at making sure we don’t only communicate effectively with tenants, but that we encourage real dialogue, openness, engagement and transparency in all we do.

Carys makes sure our tenants have the best experience possible, displaying real empathy and understanding in her approach to communications. Her passion for making positive changes has driven forward many initiatives, benefiting our tenants.

She has shown she can not only work in a proactive way, but is also a real asset during a challenge. She helped deliver effective communications to tenants during a recent building safety emergency and was a key member of the Critical Incident Team throughout.

Carys is proactively getting involved in wider sector communication and PR activity, it’s been awesome to see her confidence develop as she steps out of her comfort zone to speak up in networks and other events.

Feedback from peers about Carys has been absolutely first class. Nothing is too much trouble for her. Her willingness to spend time to help others has been above and beyond the call of duty.

Carys is relentlessly positive, hardworking, and always looks to help others. She is a quick learner and contributes new ideas that enhance and improve our services. She has become indispensable to every team she has worked with. She is driven and talented and has an amazing career ahead. It's a joy and a privilege to have her here at Taff.

What has she achieved so far?

Carys, supported by our communications partners, has secured a huge increase in in our external press coverage with articles on our work featuring in Inside Housing, Wales Online, Cardiff Business Insider and BBC Wales online.

Big increase in our online reach on platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin.

Successful communication campaigns helping raise our profile and as share vitally important information with tenants. Campaigns have included Gas Safety, raising awareness around damp and mould, inspirational stories including Taff colleagues who arrived in Wales as refugees and an International Women’s Day campaign highlighting the impact of our work with homeless women.

She is a key member of the Critical Incident Team helping ensure appropriate communications take place with tenants and other stakeholders during a building safety emergency.

She supported a successful partnership between Taff and Cardiff and Vale College to help showcase student’s artwork on our development site hoardings.

She ran a successful relaunch of our tenant newsletter Taff Talks. 

We asked Carys about her thoughts on winning the award and what it’s like to work in housing.

What makes her passionate about housing?

For me it's the positive impact that the sector makes on people’s lives every day.  I’m incredibly lucky that in my role I get to work with so many amazing colleagues across a range of teams, so no day is the same and seeing the work that they do and the impact that is having is so rewarding. It shows just how much work is going on in the sector and that its not just about bricks and mortar, it’s about creating affordable homes where people feel safe, secure, and happy. It’s about building and supporting communities and making a positive impact on people’s lives.

What are your future plans?

When I started with Taff, initially everything seemed so far away. I knew I had five years of studying and working at Taff ahead of me, so I didn’t think too far ahead into the future and tried to focus on the moment and really value and engage with the experience I was getting. But it’s absolutely blown me away how quickly my first year has gone.

At this moment in time, my focus is to keep using what I’m learning from my course and putting that into practice in my work at Taff. Hopefully graduating will be the next big milestone for me and afterwards I’d like to look towards continuing my professional development and achieve relevant body qualifications like CIPR.