Don't Leave Half the Job Undone!
Wednesday 12th of October 2016
Tpas Training Manager, Val Alker shares her observations of landlords and tenants embracing the new tenant engagement standards.
'Real involvement from operational to strategic level will give the organisation an invaluable insight and perspective that can't be gained from anyone else but your tenants.'
So says involved tenant and Soha Board Member Nasreen Razaq Al-Hamdani in her recent blog for Tpas. She adds 'Involvement needs to be part of the culture of the organisation, acknowledged and understood by all staff. That's half the work done.'
Unfortunately some organisations struggle to ensure that involvement is acknowledged and understood by all staff so half the work is left undone and tenant engagement struggles reach its potential. Staff and volunteers become frustrated as ideas and information fail to lead to positive change.
When I deliver training I meet people all over the country and find it frightening that so few have read or even heard fo the regulators Tenant and Involvement and Empowerment Standard. It's incredible in 2016 that in pockets of many organisations staff still think that tenant engagement is all about telling tenants what you are doing or have done rather than developing useful positive ways to gather insight, exchange ideas, plan and influence. I don't want to put blame on the staff here though, in many cases skilling up staff to enable effective tenant engagement isn't on the agenda. Unfortunately without such skills and a greater understanding, whole departments may be missing a trick in service improvement and efficiency gains, something that is hard to justify.
We are hoping that even if peole are not familiar with the regulators standards they will take a look at our more detailed National Tenant Engagement Standards and use them to provide a guide to effective engagement at all levels.
To help you put these positive ideas into practice Tpas have developed two new courses suitable for all staff. The courses may also benefit involved tenants too and what better way to raise awareness and generate ideas than for staff and tenants to be trained together.
Some courses are already advertised, more locations will be added. If you want to run these courses or any others in house or in your area contact us at training@tpas.org.uk.
Our two new courses
The Guide to Effective Tenant and Community Engagement shows how and why engaging with tenants, residents and communities makes excellent business sense and gives practical tips to make engagement work for you.
Techniques to Gain Insight and Information looks at and empowers you to use a range of methods to gain useful useable insight and information from your tenant engagement.