• 2.1: Talent Management
• 2.2: Learning & Development
• 2.3: Interim Services
• 2.4: Business Consultancy

As the recession bites hard, managers at medium to large housing associations have revealed their main fears – from encroaching mergers to hiring relevant staff and general overspending – and how effective partnering can help to combat them

Housing associations are facing their biggest crisis in decades, with many organisations unsure of their futures. Depreciating land banks, creeping mergers and the imperative to cut costs are intensifying the pressure on those at the top. If a mirror were held to the sector right now it would most likely reflect Edvard Munch’s famous painting, The Scream.

“There will be more consolidation,” warns Greg Brown, managing director at GB Executive Solutions. “The current climate will question the viability of even the big players, although it might be less predatory than before, with more alliances than big takeovers.”

The pace of change is likely to be fast. Genesis Housing Group is already exploring a merger with Notting Hill Housing because the former is said to be struggling to finance an ambitious house building and land buying operation. Were any deal to go ahead it would create the UK's biggest housing association, with around 58,000 properties on its books. But it’s just the tip of the iceberg.

“I know of 22 associations in dire straits. We’ll witness a large number of mergers and bail-outs this year”

Tony Pidgley, chairman of Berkeley Group – one of the UK’s largest housebuilders – says: “I know of 22 associations that are in dire straits. We will witness a large number of mergers and bail-outs this year.”

Metropolitan Housing Partnership (MHP) is among the sector’s leading lights. But, unlike Pidgley’s 22, it’s unlikely to be found on the wrong end of merger talks. MHP’s procurement director Bernard Tominey agrees there will be more mergers, but says they will happen “only if they suit, rather than taking on the sick partners that cost you operationally and put you back”.

The coming months will be hard to negotiate alone, especially for those managers too young to have fought at the heart of the last recession battlefield two decades ago. They will be considering who might help them to combat their current travails and enable their organisations to approach the next decade in rude health.

Top housing association directors use business partnering to save cash and plan to use it to make workforces fit for purpose, post recession

In a survey of HR professionals (171 respondents from some 40 UK organisations across all sectors) published by Roffey Park Institute in January, most (55%) reported that HR business partnering was quite successful in their organisation.

The idea has long since taken root at three top housing associations, whose directors use business partnering to help them save money and plan to use it to make their workforces fit for purpose, post recession. “We intend to remain an independent specialist housing provider in a sector where the current preference is that 'bigger is better', with large mergers and takeovers,” says Debbie Viner, director of business support at Gallions Housing Association. “But, while everyone else is holding back, there might be opportunities for some organisations to move forward by joining forces with partners to win new business.”

Housing associations aren’t only looking to each other for help. Any newly merged organisation – or, indeed, anyone desperately looking for staff with the skills to negate the economic climate – is likely to benefit from calling on some wise heads with experience of the last housing slump.

Whenever Viner has a difficult position to fill, she contacts The Triangle Partnership, a housing sector recruitment and business strategy specialist. “We work with Triangle when we know we need to get a result that we can’t get elsewhere,” she says.

Cathy Walsh, managing partner at Triangle, calls on over two decades of HR experience to find ideal employment candidates. In that time, the recruitment and assessment specialist has forged strong links in and out of the housing sector and placed a number of senior managers at Gallions.

“There is a lot of talent in the public sector to tap into to bring in the right skills”

“There is a lot of talent in the public sector to tap into to bring in the right skills,” says Walsh. “We can identify the people who will be able to make a difference and stick at the housing sector. But it’s also worth looking beyond people who altruistically want to work in social housing, because they quite often don’t like it once they get inside its walls.”

It pays off financially too. Gallions spend an average of £4,500 to fill one post, compared with around £12,000 through a normal job agency. “I’ve reduced the recruitment budget by £100,000 a year by having proper processes in place,” says Viner. “If we didn’t use Triangle, our recruitment budget would massively increase.”

According to the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD), the average cost of recruitment error lies between £5,000 and £50,000, depending on seniority and potential for business failure. But Viner has no such concerns: “Triangle understands our culture and guarantees an internal fit. A communications consultant has just joined us even though I wasn’t really looking for someone to fill the role. I tried her because Cathy presented her to me and she’s perfect.”.

Current economic trends dictate that Viner must decide whether to move people from Gallions’ now top-heavy sales department into administration – and she is set to run psychometric tests to find the best candidates.

“We’re quite financially robust but we can’t be complacent,” she says. “Some of our work areas are quite fat and some we have to grow. So I’m looking to move people with the right skills around. Partnering is so important because it ensures that our vacancies reach a far greater audience. Triangle has cultivated feelers so it can find us great people quickly.”

Walsh says long-term associations underpin the consultancy’s ability to become an effective partner. “We prefer to learn about the culture of an organisation before we start to help. We don't usually undertake contingency work because it is too hit and miss, like pinning a tail on a donkey blindfolded.”

Viner partners with Triangle because it “performs as well as other suppliers but doesn’t charge anywhere near executive headhunters’ fees”. She also admires its policy of getting stuck in long before sticking its hand out: “That gives us confidence that our partner will deliver.”

“Of course, it is not just about recruitment,” adds Viner. “Our HR is very strategic. Everything is based around a competency framework. We like to get people in, train them up and reward them. If you’ve got someone like Triangle who understands that, a lot of the hard work is taken from you.”

Partnering is also an efficient way to help staff to use new methods of service delivery

Partnering is also an efficient way to help staff to use new methods of service delivery, such as providing services online. MHP is working with Triangle to implement a business programme that is geared towards dramatic efficiency gains. (See the Triangle/MHP case study)

MHP recently used the consultancy’s services to help it to combine two regional departments to form MHT London. Triangle helped to assess some 200 staff into new roles and identified any training needs for promoted staff, and HR director Liz Hughes expects to receive further support when she starts a re-skilling programme aimed at helping people to keep their jobs.

MHP trust Triangle to find managerial staff in its procurement and operations teams too. In fact, Tominey says it has probably found half his procurement team. “Outsiders take me aside and say: ‘You crafty devil, you’re building a quality team there'". He says "Cathy looks at the business case together with the job description. She’s the solution architect that we’ve never had before.”

Triangle is also at the heart of an ongoing business change management programme at Shepherds Bush Housing Group (SBHG). After failing to pass Investor in People status, SBHG was forced to reflect on, evaluate and improve the quality of its management.

"Partnering is not a short-term objective, with someone coming in a few times for a quick fix"

The association has since set up a competency framework and followed up with an 18-month management development programme. Its director of HR & business support, David Blackburn, says: "Partnering is not a short-term objective, with someone coming in a few times for a quick fix. We need to ensure that the operational capability of managers is strong and staff are much more likely to be highly engaged with a good manager.”

His views chime with freelance coaching consultant Brown, whose experience includes eight years as HR director at Servite Houses. “It’s important to develop their leadership and support them in a relationship that lasts longer than a management course,” he says. “Partnering is about creating trusting relationships. By spending time with people in different organisations, I can pick up on issues and feedback to their chief executives. This helps to find solutions to potential problems before they become too big.”

Walsh adds: “We absorb drivers behind different cultures and act with integrity,” and points to a positive record that shows 95% of Triangle’s clients return for repeat work and give referrals.

There are intangible benefits too. SBHG’s Blackburn says: “While I can’t legislate for staff members being passionate and beaming all the time, I can create the environment that encourages them to act that way of their own free will.”

Maybe after other housing managers start sharing their worries by working with partners, their features will begin to reflect their workforce, shifting from those depicted in The Scream to the rather more contended outlines of Leonardo Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa.