/our friends

KNH

Cultural Change at Kirklees Neighbourhood Housing

“The training had an effect from day one. The vast majority of our staff have started to tackle some difficult cultural issues about how we provide excellent services to all our customers and how we treat each other as colleagues. I was particularly impressed with the speed that CragRats got "inside" our organisation and picked up on the key issues that we need to tackle if we are going to really improve and achieve our aim of being an excellent employer delivering excellent customer services.”

Andy Selman, Company Secretary, Kirklees Neighbourhood Housing

/challenge

Kirklees Neighbourhood Housing (hereafter KNH) is an Arms Length Management Organisation (ALMO), set up in April 2002 to manage council owned homes on behalf of Kirklees Metropolitan Council. The initial contract from the council is for 5 years (2002-2007). KNH employ 420 staff and have responsibility for around 25,000 homes.

Whilst KNH were celebrating the half way mark in their 5 year contract, the concept of an organisational culture change programme was developed. The project’s overall aim would be to win the commitment, both practical and emotional, of all KNH employees, to the new KNH culture. The vision was for every KNH employee to take personal responsibility for a 100% customer focussed and customer led culture. The 'super objective' of the programme was to create a 'Three Stars with Excellence' Organisation.

Following a tender process, CragRats were selected and awarded the contract to design, deliver and evaluate the organisational culture change programme.

/approach

CragRats and KNH developed a very close working partnership in order to design and deliver the programme to all employees within two months of appointment. The first phase of the programme was a 2 day customer focus event for 25 team managers. The objective of this event was to raise awareness and ensure that managers were committed to acting as cultural champions. The events focussed on developing coaching skills around customer care, modelling excellent practice, challenging under performance, rewarding good performance and managing staff reactions to attitudinal learning.

A unique extended narrative, made up of a series of theatrical scenarios, was used throughout the 2 days to punctuate key learning points and act as a springboard for further discussion, debate and sharing best practice.

The second phase of delivery was a theatre based learning programme for all 420 colleagues. This was central to a wider programme of organisational activities and events. An extended narrative was used to demonstrate the main issues and learning need. The overall theme was to explore the “one size fits all?” attitude to customer service. Empathy exercises (e.g.: hot seating), solution exercises (e.g.: forum theatre) and a series of communication games ensured that each event was interactive, engaging and most of all would inspire change.

/results

• KNH was re-inspected by the Audit Commission following CragRats intervention and awarded 'Three Stars with Excellence'
• 97% of delegates believed at the end of the training that it is within their control to change the way they perceive and treat people (scores of 8 out of 10 or above)
• 94% of delegates believed that you should challenge attitudes and behaviours that they find disrespectful towards themselves or other groups of people (scores of 8 out of 10 or above)
• Following the success of the "People First" programme, CragRats and KNH have continued to develop a strong partnership and work is scheduled throughout 2006 and 2007

The feedback from delegates was extremely positive and demonstrates that the cultural foundations have been firmly laid for the future. A sample comment from one of the managers: “Firstly, I’d like to say what a refreshing change, I really enjoyed the day and it was noticeable that the training was well planned and very well organised. I was really impressed you’ve obviously put a lot of hard work into the delivery of this programme, so well done and thank you for the invitation to attend.”

A sample comment from one of the organisational events: “Congratulations to whoever organised the training. I have to say that it was one of the best training days I have ever been on. It was entertaining as well informative. I was also very impressed by their knowledge of housing.”

CragRats and KNH continue to work together throughout 2006 and 2007.

//Back to our friends list