Housing group uses community projects for management development
A UK housing group used community projects to support its corporate social responsibility (CSR) goals and career development for managers.
Festival Housing executives used action-learning methods to manage “real time” projects involving five local schools. Support was provided through a programme coach and a bespoke web site with project-management and knowledge tools. A personal learning log provided evidence for qualifications and continuous professional development (CPD).
Established in March 2002, Festival Housing’s origins lie in the transfer to its member housing associations of local-authority housing stock from Malvern Hills District Council and Wychavon District Council. With a remit to offer good quality of life through healthy and sustainable communities, the group today owns and manages 8,000 properties, providing affordable housing,student and market-rent accommodation, care and supported housing, and building-maintenance services.
Supporting aims, focused on increasing capacity to deliver corporate objectives and drive improvement, included the clear need to attract, develop and retain the best quality staff and board members.
The projects sought to help Festival Housing to become an attractive local employer. They also supported the development of staff in modern management and communication skills – course members rapidly became adept at using the online project-management tools – and helped to build useful cross-organisation relationships in an organisation spanning several counties.
Echelon Learning’s community project challenge (CPC) programme consisted of specific time-bound projects of around three months in duration. Each participant spent around five days on a project, which aligned specific organisational objectives with prescribed learning outcomes, and was coached and facilitated throughout by Echelon consultants.
An initial proposal was made to the five local schools, and a decision about the broad objectives was agreed on. Agreement from managers was sought and suitable participants selected from across the group. Programme planning then began, with decisions on detailed objectives and the content and design of the web site.
The Echelon team met Festival Housing management to gain a better understanding of the business needs. An Echelon facilitator met all the team members individually to get to know their personal learning priorities, and then the team as a whole to explain the CPC process and agree potential projects to propose to schools.
The facilitator coached the team in how to approach schools and gain insight into their needs. The team worked with the schools fully to understand their needs, and suggested options for suitable projects. The process of mutual partnership began.
A facilitated planning and strategy workshop was devised to create a long-term vision and short-term team strategy to achieve the agreed goals and outcomes. The team then worked with the schools to put the new partnership programme in place.
Implementation of the programme resulted in long-term partnerships, of real mutual benefit. A one-day review and application workshop with the team and meetings with each participant were held, where all team members reflected on their experience and developed greater awareness of their own capabilities and development opportunities. They identified how to embed and sustain learning from the experience into their work. They also agreed how they would hand over the project to the next team and support its ongoing success.
Kay Dovey, Festival Housing Group project leader, said that the programme not only improved project-management skills and cross-organisational networking, but also brought about enhanced performance on key reputation indices.
“We are developing an understanding and method for coaching at work and embedding learning into the organisation in a practical and sustainable way,”she commented. “CPC is helping to improve individual and team effectiveness and aligning our outputs more closely to customer needs. This, in turn, is improving customer satisfaction. Longer-term, CPC will support succession planning by identifying relevant programme participants.”
