Customer Engagement Strategy 2011-2014

A Modern Framework of
Customer Engagement

A Modern Framework of
Customer Engagement
We are pleased to introduce our Customer Engagement Strategy 2011-2014.
This strategy has been developed with the input of tenants and residents.
Customer Engagement is really important to all of us at Golding Homes. We
want our customers to have a real say in how services are delivered and to
have a real choice in the extent and nature of the involvement. This is why
we have developed a variety of flexible ways in which customers can get
involved in reviewing performance and future service delivery.

2 Golding Homes Customer Engagement Strategy 2011-2014

Golding Homes Customer Engagement Strategy 2011-2014

Introduction

Index
Introduction

Golding Homes Corporate

Vision and Values

Aims and Objectives

Background to the strategy

Developing Customer Engagement

A modern framework of Customer

Engagement

Forms and levels of engagement

Resourcing Customer Engagement

11

Role of Service Teams

11

Residents Resource Centre

12

Support offered

12

Incentives

12

Evaluating Impact, Reviewing

Progress, Ongoing Development

13

Measuring success

12

Valuing Diversity

13

Golding Homes is a locally based

housing provider. We are committed to
customer engagement and ensuring that
customers are able to participate fully in
the development of the housing service in
a way that suits them.
We believe that customers have a right
to be consulted and involved when the
organisation is making decisions about
their homes, their estates and the housing
services they receive.
Our customers are our tenants, all other
residents in our homes, applicants for
housing and people working in partner
organisations. Engagement of our
customers is vital to the success of the
organisation. Our overall aim therefore
will continue to be to increase individual
opportunities for customers to become
involved in our decision making and to
extend opportunities for wider customer
engagement reaching new groups and
committing to developing the use of
technology to enable more customers to
become involved from their own homes.
This document, which has been developed
with customers, explains how our
customer engagement work promotes
accountability, influences the services we
provide and improves the neighbourhoods
in which we work.

Golding Homes Customer Engagement Strategy 2011-2014

Golding Homes Corporate

Vision and Values
Golding Homes is committed to working in partnership
to improve the homes and local environment of
all customers. This will be achieved by providing
good quality services, which respond to the needs
of customers and offer opportunities that allow
customers to make a difference to the services
they receive and to the way those services are
developed in the future.

Our Mission:

To provide affordable homes

in communities where people
want to live
Our Vision:
To get customer service right, first time.
Our Values:
Customer focused Performance driven
Creative and enabling Open Positive
Our Vision for customer engagement is to create a culture
and approach which recognises and values customer involvement.
Effective involvement will enable us to reach as many customers as
we can at a local level, ensuring they have the opportunity to take
an active part in improving the communities where they live.

Golding Homes Customer Engagement Strategy 2011-2014

Aims and Objectives

The aims and objectives of this strategy
are:
Embed Customer Involvement across
the organisation so that it is viewed and
practised by all as an integral part of the
organisations culture
Ensure customers are at the heart of the
decision making process
Provide a wide range of flexible
opportunities for customers to be
involved to influence and shape the
services they receive
Provide dedicated resources to support
and enable effective involvement by our
customers
Remove barriers to involvement
to ensure all customers have the
opportunity to be involved, reaching
a wider range of customers by taking
active steps to engage with hard to
reach groups and vulnerable customers
Maximise and report on the
effectiveness of customer involvement
activities

Ensure that we meet regulatory

requirements in relation to customer
involvement
Evaluate and improve the value for
money of customer involvement
activities
To achieve these aims we will
Work in partnership with customers and
stakeholders
Provide clear information to customers
about how to get involved and provide
support for them to achieve this
Provide flexible opportunities which
are open and accessible for customers
to get involved in ways that suit
them giving choice about the level of
involvement
Provide training for customers to help
raise their awareness and understanding
Make sure we measure the impact of
involvement

Golding Homes Customer Engagement Strategy 2011-2014

Background to
the strategy
Gaining views from customers is vital for us
to obtain an understanding of their needs
and aspirations, and also to continuously
enhance and improve services.
By involving customers at the level they
choose, there are many benefits for them
and us including;
Increasing customer satisfaction
Enhancing accountability
Ensuring that policies meet the needs of
customers
Continuous improvement in service
delivery
Ensuring that customers are involved in
decisions that affect them
Improving the community and
environment
promoting sustainability
Managing customer expectation-having a
role in decision making helps customers
understand that some changes are
gradual and cannot happen overnight
Taking ownership of the outcomes
of involvement, for example in
neighbourhood projects
Customers having a better understanding
of policies
This strategy covers engagement with all
Golding Homes customers. We recognise
that our approach will need to vary to meet
differing customer needs.
In producing this strategy we have taken
into account feedback from customers,
staff and board members through a range
of consultation methods. These included
workshops for staff and customers,
including the Customer Sounding Board and
Customer Talkback Panel; focus groups;
questionnaires, which were distributed
to a random selection of customers (500
questionnaires were distributed, of these
6

104 were returned), and consultation

throughout the summer of 2010, at a variety
of community events.
Some of the key aims of the consultation
were to establish customers views on how
they prefer information to be made available
to them, how they prefer to comment
on service delivery, and how we might
overcome barriers to involvement, so as to
encourage further diversity amongst our
involved customers.
Overall in terms of numbers engaged
throughout the consultation 64% of the
respondents were over 60. Given the
age profile of our tenant base this is not
surprising, but it highlights the need for us
to continue to encourage engagement with
our younger customers and hard to reach
groups.
The more structured approaches to
engaging with customers through Tenant &
Resident Associations and regular meetings
have proved to be less popular and we need
to ensure that alternative opportunities are
available.
The work that we have done around local
offers has been very successful in terms
of reaching out to customers who had not
been engaged previously. A number of fluid
approaches were adopted with the option
to dip in and dip out. This demonstrates
that customers will get involved if the
opportunities offer sufficient flexibility to suit
their needs.
Our strategy therefore aims to go beyond
traditional methods of engagement, aiming
to reach new groups, such as the gypsy
and traveller community and committing to
developing our use of technology to enable
more tenants to become involved from their
own homes.

Developing Customer
Engagement
Golding Homes welcomes the current
agenda of resident scrutiny rather than

Golding Homes Customer Engagement Strategy 2011-2014

regulator assessment. This reflects the ethos

of our Corporate Plan Values which are to
be customer focused, performance driven,
creative and enabling, open and positive.
The regulatory framework requires tenants
to be at the heart of decisions about their
homes and how services are delivered by
their landlords. This approach to regulation
provides a greater emphasis on the
relationship between landlords and their
tenants at a local level.
The key regulatory requirements are
To introduce locally agreed standards
(local offers) to be agreed between
tenants and providers. These should
strengthen national standards and tailor
them to local priorities
To publish an annual report on standards
and performance
Co-regulation which means a balance
between direct regulation and self
regulation by landlords which involves
evidence based self-assessment which is
subject to tenant scrutiny.
Offering all tenants a wide range of
opportunities to be involved in the
management of their housing, including
the ability to influence strategic priorities,
the formulation of housing related policies
and the delivery of housing related
services
In developing this strategy we have taken
into account these requirements to ensure
that customers are central to influencing
and monitoring the range of services
received from their landlord. We have also
consulted extensively with customers to
identify expectations on how they wish to be
involved.
The regulatory framework requires that
processes to scrutinise the delivery of
services involve tenants. By broadening
the range of opportunities and numbers
of customers involved, this will spread the
responsibility that is required in this area
of involvement, and enable customers to
have greater flexibility in the scale of their

involvement, whilst being able to influence

decisions at a significant level, This will
involve taking account of a wide range of
views rather than just those of a small group
of involved customers.
To enable effective evaluation of our Local
Offer priorities we will develop opportunities
for customers to become involved in
a scrutiny process and invite critical
assessment of our performance against our
objectives.
This process will take us beyond our
traditional approaches to customer
engagement and therefore relies on
the commitment of all staff across the
organisation to support a coherent
framework of involvement.
The scrutiny process will be developed
by fostering service specific resident
involvement mechanisms reporting back on
a range of agreed specific outputs and make
assessments against customer satisfaction
and quality indicators.
Our experience shows that a general
approach to inviting customers to get
involved through for example articles in
our magazine are not always successful.
Building up contact with customers for the
scrutiny process will be through existing
engaged service users. Service specific
groups will come together for an annual
event or conference to share results and
learning and plan for ongoing scrutiny.
Each service will attract a flexible scrutiny
group, who will engage with us using a
range of methods appropriate to the service.
We will ask customers who have worked
with us in dealing with service delivery
issues to provide feedback on our services.
We will seek their feedback on a range of
service indicators to help us assess the
effectiveness of our initiative and seek
continuous improvement of the service.
The outputs from this process will help to
review and inform the information which
feeds into our annual report to tenants and
identifies customer priorities for service
improvement going forward.

Golding Homes Customer Engagement Strategy 2011-2014

A modern framework of Customer Engagement

Our strategy for moving forward with Customer Engagement involves providing
opportunities at various levels with some opportunities being more formal than others and
increased opportunities for customers to dip in and dip out at their convenience. Our stock
is dispersed and we need to ensure that opportunities are provided that ensure customers
living in rural areas are not disadvantaged.

We know that targeted approaches to service users is an effective way of getting customers
involved and this needs to feature in our future involvement approach.
It is important to note that regardless of whether involvement takes place at local or at
strategic level, customers should expect their involvement to have an impact on the
organisation.
In light of this we are not proposing a hierarchical structure. We will ensure that the outputs
of any activity are linked together to provide a better picture of the views and needs of
customers. For example, a service improvement project may consist of several involvement
activities (a survey, a focus group, a working group), that together provide a more complete
view of how the service needs to be improved.

Golding Homes Customer Engagement Strategy 2011-2014

Flexible Forms of Engagement

MEETINGS

Regular

E-MAIL

Ad-Hoc
Complaints

Document review

Workshops
Community events

FACE TO FACE

WEBSITE

TELEPHONE

Survey
questionnaire

Service inspections

WRITTEN

Training

Levels of Involvement
LEVEL FOUR

LEVEL THREE

Ad-Hoc
involvement

Ad-Hoc rregular
involvement
m

Customer Talkback panel

Estate inspections

LEVEL TWO

Regularr a
and
on-going
ng
involvement
m

LEVEL ONE

Board members

One-off focus groups

Responding to survey
One-off consultations
Community action

Thematic
Overarching

Service specific forums

Service contractor monitoring
Tenure specific forums

CSB
Editorial panel
Mystery shopping
Residents groups
Company members

Golding Homes Customer Engagement Strategy 2011-2014

Levels of Involvement

particularly in those aspects of involvement

which currently require a greater level of
commitment.

It is important to identify the level and

method of engagement required to achieve
the outcome required. Different types of
engagement include;
Engagement for Information
(Communication)
Letting people know what will happen
Engagement for consideration
(Consultation)
Letting people know what could happen
and what scope there would be for their
comment
Engagement for improvement
(Consultation)
Seeking customers and service users
views specifically to bring about an
improvement in services
Engagement for involvement
(Involvement)
Involving people in the development of
service standards and delivery

We wish to enable customers to influence

the wide range of services that we provide.
This will include services such as asset
management and development, as well
as more traditional areas of customer
involvement such as housing management
and maintenance.

Receiving feedback from customers is

vital for us to gain an understanding of
their needs and aspirations, and to enable
us to continuously enhance and improve
services.
Customer Engagement is about giving
our customers a say in how services
are shaped and delivered, and the
opportunity to help make decisions about
the issues that are important to them
in the management of their homes and
communities.

Service improvement plans will be required

to show how customers will be involved in
designing, influencing and monitoring the
service
Attached at Appendix A is the menu of
opportunities to get involved.

Value for Money

It is important that we ensure we offer
a value for money service for Customer
Engagement. To achieve this we will
Compare the cost of customer
involvement against other organisations
Work in partnership with other
organisations to reduce the cost of
initiatives where possible
Review and monitor the way customers
are able to become involved in
developing the service
Asses the impact of our engagement
activities

For some customers receiving regular

information about services is enough;
others will want to be more actively
involved and take part in the decision
making process
Our aspiration is to reach a wider customer
profile, including younger people,
10

Golding Homes Customer Engagement Strategy 2011-2014

Resourcing Customer
Engagement
We provide a dedicated team, and
resources to support customers who
wish to become involved but we also
recognise that customer involvement is
an integral part of the job for staff across
the organisation. Where appropriate, staff
will have specific objectives in relation to
customer engagement, and every new
member of staff will receive information on
the importance of customer engagement
within the organisation as part of their
induction training.
A dedicated budget to support customer
engagement is held by the Head of
Community Development to enable
projects and consultation to be undertaken
and to ensure the delivery of existing
initiatives. This budget includes funding
to support tenants with expenses and
training.

During our consultation with customers we

were told that feedback on involvement
is important. In order to achieve this we
will report customer engagement activity
and its impact through the website, the
customers newsletter Home Matters and
where appropriate using the you said we
did format.

The Community Development Team will be

responsible for supporting and monitoring
the delivery of customer engagement. The
team will offer support and guidance on
how best to involve customers and will coordinate opportunities for customers to be
consulted and involved.

Residents
Resource Centre

Role of Service Teams

Service Teams will be responsible for
carrying out consultation in relation to their
service area. This will include consultation
on service reviews, performance and
improvement projects.
All teams will provide feedback to
customers on the results, and action taken
as a direct result of the consultation that
has taken place.

We provide a fully equipped Residents

Resource Centre which is available for
customer engagement activities as well as
providing a meeting facility for community
groups. This is provided free of charge and
we actively encourage the use of these
facilities by customers and partners and
will continue to build capacity in terms of
usage.
This facility also provides a valuable
opportunity to deliver training and
workshops locally and conveniently for
customers.

Golding Homes Customer Engagement Strategy 2011-2014

11

Support offered
We believe that customers should not
be worse off as a result of volunteering
in our engagement activities.
We will reimburse reasonable out of
pocket expenses for attending meetings
which includes car mileage allowance,
taxi fares for those unable to take public
transport and care costs.
We will provide help to find venues for
meetings.
We will provide support to produce local
newsletters.
We will provide support to resident
groups to facilitate effective
involvement.

Incentives
We will provide incentives to promote
involvement opportunities in some areas
such as mystery shopping in the form of
high street shopping vouchers. This is a
new initiative to recognise and encourage
more customers to participate, and
for them to be acknowledged for their
contributions in terms of the commitment
and responsibility that is required for
this initiative.

Training for Residents

We are committed to providing training,
and have a dedicated training budget.
We will deliver training in a range of forms
which may include any of the following:
Conferences & Events
Skills for Life
Workshops
Community Development
External Training and/or training
facilitated by staff
12

Evaluating Impact,
Reviewing Progress,
Ongoing Development
We want to be sure that customers who
are involved see what has been achieved
and believe that they have made a real
difference.
We will make sure that there is a cohesive
approach to customer engagement
and that activities are monitored for
effectiveness.
Information from engagement activities
will be dealt with in a joined up way with
service areas using results to enhance and
shape their services to customers.
To ensure that customer engagement
activities are making a difference to our
services, evaluation of impact will become
a much more critical feature. We will review
all involvement activities for:
Effectiveness - has the activity achieved
the objectives set?
Popularity - were customers attracted
by the activity? Were there specific
groups of customers that engaged or did
not engage in the opportunity?
Access and diversity - was it easy to
get to? Did it reach the people it needed
to reach? Did we get a good cross
section of people involved?
Value for money - does the output, such
as suggested improvements, savings or
re-prioritised spending justify the input,
including funding, customers time,
staffing and other resources.

Golding Homes Customer Engagement Strategy 2011-2014

Tenant Involvement
Database
In order to assist with the evaluation
process and capture information regarding
the numbers of tenants involved, a working
database has been developed to record,
monitor and manage customer involvement
activities and their outcomes.

Cycle of Continuous
Improvement
Going forward our aim is to ensure that we
continually improve services for customers
and increase levels of satisfaction. We
will achieve this through application of
the elements shown in the virtual cycle
detailed below:
Monitoring
Gathering and recording customer
satisfaction and comparing this against
agreed performance targets.

IMPROVEMENT

FEEDBACK

Reviewing
Examining the information gathered from
customers to identify how services can be
developed and improved.

EVALUATION

MONITORING

REVIEWING

CONSULTATION

Consultation
Working together with customers to
discuss and identify ways to improve and
implement positive changes.
Feedback
Ensuring that customers know that
their views have been used to help i
mprove services via newsletters, website
and leaflets.
Evaluation and Improvement;
Implementing changes
Making changes to improve services
based on customers suggestions, needs
and aspirations.

Golding Homes Customer Engagement Strategy 2011-2014

13

Measuring success
The success of the Customer Engagement Strategy will be measured by
Achievements against targets and measurable outcomes
Benchmarking against other high performing landlords
Impact assessment review
Increased satisfaction and successful outcomes in terms of take up in response to
increased opportunities for involvement
Improved satisfaction levels in line with the targets set out in the Corporate Plan by 2016
which are:
Increasing resident satisfaction with the overall quality of services we deliver to 94%
Increasing resident satisfaction with neighbourhood as a place to live to 92%
Increasing resident satisfaction with being kept informed to 90%
Increasing resident satisfaction with their views being taken into account to 71%

STATUS Results
The following table shows progress made in key areas of customer satisfaction, our targets
for 2011 and 2016, and top quartile performance.

TOP QUARTILE
(2010)

Neighbourhood

65%

14

Golding Homes Customer Engagement Strategy 2011-2014

71%

Valuing Diversity
At the heart of this strategy is our
commitment to providing a fair and
equitable service, and ensuring that
customers are treated equally without
discrimination. We will make sure that
in delivering our services we continue
to be inclusive and representative. We
want all tenants and residents to have
the opportunity to be involved regardless
of age, ability and background, and will
provide the support to facilitate this.
We aim to be effective in encouraging
wider involvement, and to achieve this,
we will continue to develop our customer
profile information so that we know and
understand the needs of our customers,
to enable us to tailor our services to meet
their diverse needs.

We will employ different methods of

consultation to ensure that as many
people as possible have the opportunity to
participate in a way that they feel is right
for them.
We will make sure that information is
available in a variety of formats, including
different languages, on audio cassette and
in large print, by newsletter, leaflets, and
information in service access points and
on the website. This will help all tenants
and residents to have access to up to date
information.

Data Protection
Golding Homes will operate this
policy in accordance with our Data
Protection Policy.

Golding Homes Customer Engagement Strategy 2011-2014

15

Appendix A
There are currently a wide range of
options available to customers who wish
to get involved with the organisation.
The involvement options set out below
are initiatives designed to ensure that
customers living in our homes have the
opportunity to get involved, should they
wish at a level and pace of their choice. We
will continue to provide opportunities for
customers to have their say in a way that

they are comfortable with, and which fits

in with their lifestyle. Customers views will
not only be listened to, but seriously taken
into account when decisions are made.
All the options will need some
commitment. This ranges from a few
minutes to several hours a month. To help
customers decide which option might suit
them we have coded each option and
explained the commitment.

For those customers who want a casual, informal,

as and when involvement
For those customers who want a more frequent involvement,
concentrating on their local area or specific issues
For those customers who would like a higher level of regular
involvement, training and a desire to influence decisions the
organisation makes
For those customers wishing to be directly involved in making
decisions in partnership with the organisation, or a desire to govern the
organisation. Full commitment, frequent meetings and regular training.

Magazine
The organisations publication Home
Matters, posted to all our residents, is
dedicated to informing people of the latest
developments within the organisation and
suggesting ways that customers might
like to get involved in our decision making
process.
It contains information on the organisations
performance and future plans and more
often than not, will ask for comments on a
range of issues. Home Matters is produced
four times a year and is available as Audio
CD, large print and Braille. An electronic
version is available on our website and there
are copies in our offices.

16

Letters and leaflets

The organisation will write to customers
throughout the year on a variety of issues.
Some letters will be confirming repairs
that have reported or give news about rent
accounts. Regular rent statements will be
sent throughout the year. Other letters may
ask for views on services provided or invite
customers to special events.
These require very little commitment.
Some letters received are purely to keep
customers up to date. Others may invite
views, which customers can choose to
reply to if they wish.

Golding Homes Customer Engagement Strategy 2011-2014

Local Area News Sheets or

Street Newsletters
The organisation will encourage the
production and distribution by customers
of more local newsletters to customers.
Each edition will let customers know
whats happening locally.
Newsletters are handy, and local
information delivered to customers homes
requires very little time and energy to read.
The organisation will produce other
publications throughout the year.
These include our annual report, local
performance plan and annual Tenants
report. These documents are designed
to keep customers informed about the
organisations performance and plans.
These look at the bigger picture not just
an individuals home or area.

of Open Days and meetings. Details of

resident association meetings will also
be announced. The organisation will
also advertise well in advance Public
Consultations and Estate Inspection dates.
The website also publishes local news and
Golding Homes news.
There is a Get Involved page which is
updated regularly.

Estate Inspections

Property Advisors will attend the

published estate walkabout inspections
with customers, to keep up to date with
estate issues in the areas served by
the organisation. Residents wishing to
accompany the Property Advisor are very
welcome to join in.

Focus Groups
Suggestion Boxes
The Suggestion Box is in our reception
area, at Shepway Area Housing Office, so
customers can pass on their suggestions
to further improve our services.

Open Events & Conferences

Informal days giving information about
the work of the organisation. Talks and
displays from different departments within
the organisation will give a flavour of what
the organisation does and how customers
views and suggestions really do make a
difference.

Golding Homes website www.goldinghomes.org.uk

Our website has been developed by the
organisation. Our aim is to broaden and
expand the site further. Repairs, and
issues about the neighbourhood can
be reported online. We publish details

Our aim is to create small gatherings of

between six and twelve customers usually
in one-off sessions designed to gather
information on specific or current issues.
Meetings would last between one and
two hours and refreshments and out-ofpocket expenses, such as transport costs,
will be paid. Focus groups form a key part
of our reviews, which look at improving
specific areas of the organisations work
such as the repairs service, the way we let
our properties and how we manage the
neighbourhood.
These are suitable for customers who wish
to share their views on specific issues,
without a regular commitment.

Estate Champions
The organisation has a scheme called
Estate Champions, whereby customers
can monitor, for instance, our grass cutting
services, or tell us how well, our cleaning
and caretaking services are provided.

Golding Homes Customer Engagement Strategy 2011-2014

17

We will explain our standards and how

to monitor them. We will also provide
feedback on comments. Estate Champions
are encouraged to attend the published
estate inspections to work with Golding
Homes Officers to ensure that communities
are safe and vibrant places to live.

Customer Panels
Customer panels are a good opportunity
to influence how services are delivered and
are proving highly successful.
Examples of successful panels are:
Customer Repairs Panel
Editorial Panel which looks at the
production of the organisations
publications
Grounds Maintenance Panel - which
looks at contracted services
Gas Servicing Monitoring Panel
These groups meet regularly and look at
service improvement issues which will
include monitoring of local offers

Golding Homes gives a vote in important

decisions regarding the management of
the organisation. Members will receive the
Annual Report, accounts, and have the
opportunity to vote on any changes to the
organisations constitution, and receive a
members certificate.

Tenure Specific Forums

These forums have been established to
further the aims of Leaseholders, Sheltered
Scheme customers and customers
receiving support from us. Membership
is open to all Leaseholders, Sheltered
Scheme Residents and Customers
receiving support.
The business of these forums will be
guided by the membership and will meet
as necessary, but not less that two times a
year.
This participation option requires a regular
attendance and a genuine interest in
Leaseholder or Supported Housing issues.

Mystery Shopping
Community Action Teams
& Community Groups

18

These are based on themed issues that

are important to customers in their local
areas. The action days generally take place
over the spring and summer. The activities
might include litter picking or consultation
on a particular issue. This provides an
opportunity for staff and customers to work
together and get to know each other in an
informal way.

Mystery shoppers help us to evaluate the

quality of customer services provided by
calling or visiting. They pose as an ordinary
customer and provide feedback of their
experience.
Training is required which takes place over
one weekday. All reasonable travel and
care expenses will be reimbursed.
High Street vouchers are presented to
customers who successfully complete
these.

Membership of
Golding Homes

Customer Sounding Board

Tenants or leaseholders of the

organisation may have the right to
apply for membership. Membership of

Customer Sounding Board (CSB) is a

group of customers who have an interest
in learning about the organisation and
who help us to improve our services by

Golding Homes Customer Engagement Strategy 2011-2014

sharing their views on various aspects

of Landlord services. The CSB meet
every three months. Members have been
recruited following an application process.
This process tried to ensure that the
membership reflects the tenant profile of
our stock.
An important aspect of the CSBs work is
helping to make decisions for applicants
for Grant Funding from the Community
Chest Fund.
This participation option requires a regular
commitment in attending meetings,
reading and commenting on documents.
Opportunities for training sessions to
develop skills are offered regularly and
we encourage members to participate in
these. Reasonable expenses will be paid.

Project Groups
Project groups are likely to meet quite
frequently to progress a project, usually
to an agreed timetable or schedule.
Commitment therefore will be high,
however benefits are significant as
participants have a real opportunity to
make a difference to Golding Homes
services or local communities. A
willingness to undertake training and
interpret complex information will be
required. Training provided can be formal
or informal to suit you!
Membership of project groups is open to all.

Golding Homes
Board Membership
Up to six tenants (including the possibility
of a leaseholder) are selected to represent
customers views at the highest level of the
organisation, the Board of Management.
The Board acts in the same way that a
Board of Directors would work in a large
company. They make strategic decisions
and guide the overall strategic direction of

the organisation. Managers report directly

to the Board and are accountable to them.
Being part of the management board is a
big responsibility.
Board Membership is vital to the success
of the organisation and requires a high
degree of commitment. Experience
of governance/board membership is
not required, but you must be able to
demonstrate a range of relevant skills/
competencies e.g business skills; staff
management; property management;
contract management; finance;
understanding of customer issues/
concerns; community relations; equal
opportunities or customer service; strategic
leadership; analysing and scrutinising;
team working; group decision making; self
management; specialist knowledge.
Frequent training opportunities will
be offered. Support from other Board
members and staff will also be extensively
available.
Being a Board Member requires a high
level of regular commitment and can
make a positive impact to peoples lives.
By working collectively with other Board
Members you can:
Help the organisation deliver its
promises
Shape business objectives
Direct future strategy
Keep an eye on the finances of the
organisation
Monitor the organisations performance
and service standards
Receive reimbursement of out-of-pocket
expenses
This is a paid role and we recruit as and
when vacancies arise.

Golding Homes Customer Engagement Strategy 2011-2014

19

Customer Engagement
Strategy 2011-2014

Board Directors
John Barned (Vice Chairman)

Sarah Pinks

Peter Budgen

Michael Rutherford

Roger Ford (Chairman)

Rachel Smith

Blair Gulland

Ron Tedman

Alasdair Johnston

Senior Management Team

Peter Stringer, Chief Executive
Jillie Smithies, Director of Operations
Chris Blundell, Director of Development and Regeneration
Michael Robinson, Director of Resources

Golding Homes, Whatman House

St Leonards Road, Maidstone
Kent, ME16 0LS
Freephone 0800 923 2700
Local Rate 01622 212600
Fax 01622 212553
Web www.goldinghomes.org.uk
This document is available in large print,
on audio CD and in other languages on
request. Freephone 0800 923 2700
Published April 2011.
Registered in England and Wales Companies House No. 04338328.
Charity Commission No. 1104956. Tenant Services Authority No. LH4402