PFH is taking an innovative approach to engaging residents and listening to their views. Earlier in 2021, the Government’s Social Housing White Paper set out a new Charter for social housing residents,
detailing what residents should be able to expect and what landlords need to do to listen to residents.
We are taking a proactive approach to ensuring we do everything we can to listen to residents and that’s why we launched a series of Customer Engagement Workshops, as a way of gaining a deeper understanding of residents’ opinions and ensuring we are really listening.
The November workshop was led by an external consultant from an organisation which aims to work in partnership with landlords and their tenants to develop and sustain excellent tenant scrutiny and empowerment arrangements. During the first session, residents and staff looked at the white paper and discussed it, as well as talking about areas PFH is performing well in and areas needing improvement.
Amongst those invited were people who responded to last year’s Residents’ Satisfaction Survey with areas of concern, as well as people who had previously complained – we talked about how residents can challenge and shape performance.
The session in November focused on the formation and monitoring of policies and procedures and how PFH can ensure residents are involved in the shaping of future policy updates. We had active group discussions around how residents feel their feedback is handled and how PFH can improve in terms of providing a response.
We gained some invaluable insight into engagements from a resident perspective. Kate-Marie Foster, Customer Experience Manager at PFH, said: “Resident engagement and feedback is vital to all aspects of the work we do at PFH. We welcome opportunities to connect with our residents, and the
recent workshops have enabled us to make great strides in planning our future commitment in strategic
resident involvement.
As we head into 2022, we will build upon these foundations and we look forward to working with residents to support them in influencing, challenging and shaping services.