What We Do
Metropolitan Housing - partnering case study
A Metropolitan match made in 2003
When the Triangle Partnership recommended that Liz Hughes swap the private sector to lead Metropolitan Housing Partnership’s (MHP) restructured HR department in 2003, the switch sparked a long and fruitful relationship.
“Since then, we’ve placed more than 50 members of staff into the organisation and worked on a range of projects designed to improve efficiency and boost business,” says Cathy Walsh, managing partner at the business strategy consultancy.
“We work with Triangle because its staff take pains to understand the nuances of our business,” says Hughes – now HR director at MHP. “They take joint accountability and ownership on the work we ask them to undertake and go to greater lengths than many other agencies to deliver on time and on budget.”
The housing group’s partnership with Triangle shows how using external partners can deliver clear business improvement. MHP uses Triangle’s expertise in finding people with the right skills and cultural fit to help implement many of its restructuring and growth projects.
“Triangle’s help is always totally committed and practical,” says Hughes. “When we combined two regional departments to form MHT London, which is part of MHP, Triangle was very effective in assisting us with the assessment of our staff to fill 30 vacant posts, and in helping us to identify any learning needs for those staff who were promoted.”
Apart from its regional restructure, MHP has called on Triangle to assist with Achieving Excellence, its largest-ever business transformation programme.
“MHP has completely reviewed its processes within the HR, finance and procurement functions, together with investing in enhanced technology,” says Hughes. This transformation programme will ultimately help us to reduce the paper flow, put in place better controls and real time management information, resulting in large efficiency gains. Triangle has provided us – often at short notice – with some key skills that were critical to the project’s delivery.”
Triangle has also “placed” around half of procurement director Bernard Tominey’s team at MHP. He says: “Cathy is very intuitive. When you talk to her for five minutes she’ll have the job description back to you in seconds. Then she says she’ll have three people for you to see on Monday.
“Triangle is the solution architect that we’ve never had before”
“Cathy works fast because she understands that we need to sort our problems quickly,” he adds. “But she doesn’t skimp on quality. She looks at the business case together with the job description,” he adds. “She’s the solution architect that we’ve never had before.”
When MHP was recently facing potentially draining teething problems over its conversion to electronic payment systems via Oracle 12, it Tominey says it “desperately” needed an expert to make the system work.
“Implementing our investment in Oracle was not as straightforward as it may seem,” he says. “So it’s about managing the exceptions – such as paying £100 on this and that. Triangle sent us someone very experienced who understood that the problems would explode. He sat down with everyone and told them in a straightforward way how to deal with the system. Everyone is content and Cathy found him in three days!”
“Without doubt,” adds Tominey, “it’s a triangle that points us in the right direction.”
Positions filled include:
Procurement Director, Head of Health and Safety, Facilities Manager, Office Administrator, Interim Health and Safety Manager
Information Services Director, Business Programme Officer Manager, Development Systems and Information Officer, Business Programme Office Support, Business Analyst, Interim Programme Manager, Interim Programme Office Coordinator, Interim Business Analyst
HR Director, HR Manager, Recruitment and Retentiion Manager, Recruitment Administrator, HR Assistant, HR Advisors, Learning and Development Advisor, Training and Development Assistant, Interim HR Advisors
Cathy Walsh
Managing Partner
Triangle Partnership
"We work on a range of projects designed to improve efficiency and boost business."
Liz Hughes
HR Director
Metropolitan Housing P'ship
"We work with Triangle because its staff take pains to understand the nuances of our business."
