This has certainly been one of the strangest weeks of my working life. Who would have thought that in such a short time the whole World could have been brought to an almost complete standstill, by a virus?
We have always tried to plan for every eventuality, at WHA but we didn’t predict this. What we do have is something called a Business Continuity Plan, which is tested and updated regularly. This time we have had to use it for real. Within the space of a couple of weeks, we went from “Phase One”, – which was mostly about following Government advice to tell people to wash their hands to where we are now – working as virtual teams and focusing on priority services.
We’ve aimed to keep customers updated via social media, including weekly updates on our websites.. I’d like to thank our customers for bearing with us during this time, while we focus on priority services and trying to think of innovative ways to keep in touch. It’s testament to the strength of the organisation, the relationship we have with our customers and the trust in our colleagues that we have been able to move to our current position so quickly.
We now have a framework in place to ensure that we continue to deliver essential services to our customers across housing, WHiA and Lifetime.
Moving forward, for however long it might be, we still have work to do and we still need to continue to assess the impact of COVID 19 on each other and the services we are able to deliver.
Our new framework involves:-
- Senior managers holding virtual meetings every Wednesday for the foreseeable future, to discuss progress and to make any necessary changes. We will communicate the outcomes of these meetings with colleagues, customers, & stakeholders every week.
- We will track the short and long term impact of our current situation via a new interim performance framework – which our regulator (the RSH) is currently drafting.
- We will continue to hold virtual Board meetings and try to maintain some of the “business as usual” work we are hoping to deliver, over the next 12 months., For example,
- We recently agreed the purchase of a new IT system, which will help us manage processes much more effectively, hopefully allowing us more time to focus on customer service and priorities. It remains our aim to continue with the implementation of this new system
- We will still collect data to demonstrate the Social Value we deliver, such as helping tackle loneliness and Isolation, in fact this is now more important than ever and we are utilising as many different digital platforms to help us stay in touch with our community.
- We won’t be allocating our empty properties in the short term, except for absolute emergency cases agreed with the Council and we have also suspended transfers and mutual exchanges. But we will still be monitoring rent payments and supporting those customers who are in financial difficulties.
- We made a commitment not to evict anyone as a consequence of COVID 19 prior to the Government’s announcement on this subject and we will continue to support customers in terms of benefits advice, again, this is possibly more important than it has ever been.
- Our “virtual” teams will continue to take calls/messages from customers, dealing with what we can and logging what we need to put on hold, to be dealt with later.
- Our back office will continue to function, ensuring our contractors and suppliers will still be paid, to support them to maintain their businesses.
- In supporting the NHS, we will continue to deliver essential services through WHiA – where that links to keeping vulnerable people out of hospital or helping get people home from hospital, taking pressure off the NHS to allow them to focus on tacking COVID-19.
- Our Lifetime service is already coming up with lots of innovative and creative ways to engage with our customers – through virtual coffee mornings and the like and this remains a priority for us over the coming months.
I realise that our new arrangements will take some getting used to and there will inevitably be some bumps in the road. However, WHA is in a very strong position to weather this storm and we remain focused on doing the best we can to support each other, our customers, and our partners through this.
Thank you for your continued support and understanding.
