Blog | What are our Tenants' Talks?

We are extremely lucky to have a group of very loyal and knowledgeable tenants who are happy to share their thoughts, views and experiences on our services. 

One way they do this is through our regular Tenants’ Talk sessions, which are stand-alone sessions to look at an idea, policy, strategy or proposal with our involved tenants. 

Our tenants are the experts in the services we deliver, so the Tenants’ Talk sessions can provide valuable insight from a tenant’s perspective.  They can lead to improvements and cost savings.

Our Head of Strategic Asset Management (Property Services), Kate Hudson talks about a recent session she led and how valuable she found the tenant feedback.

Q. Why did you want to take part in the Tenants’ Talk?

Kate: I was updating our Asset Management Strategy and wanted to get tenants’ views on some of the changes we had proposed.

Q. What did you talk about? 

Kate: We talked about the different types of property surveys we do and how often we do them, getting views on whether more frequent, shorter visits, or less frequent, longer ones were preferable.

We also talked about how we might prioritise properties for surveys and rate them by risk, having higher risk properties inspected more often.  I explained how we plan our major investment works, using the age of properties/components as well as condition to decide when to replace something. 

We had a good discussion on balancing our responsibilities as a landlord to 9,000 tenants against those to individual tenants, especially when it comes to making decisions about which properties get new kitchens.

Q. What did you learn from the session and from the tenants’ feedback?

Kate: We got some clear feedback on the preference for fewer visits, but doing more at each one, but also that we need to be better at explaining when the inspections are for and what the outcomes might be. 

Our tenants were also very clear that we should not assume all tenants are the same. They said we should look at both the property type and the people who live there when deciding how often to inspect properties, taking into account things like length of tenancy, number and age of occupant. 

On a more general note, I learnt that our tenants are more aware of our wider responsibilities as a social landlord than I expected. They fully appreciate how decisions we make have to be for the good of the whole, which can mean some individuals feel hard done to on occasion.  The constructive discussions were really valuable and helped shift my way of thinking about our interactions with tenants.

Q. Would you encourage tenants to join in the Tenants' Talk? And why?

Kate: It would be great if we had even more tenants involved, as for us, it would mean an even bigger sample of views and opinions. 

For tenants themselves, it gives them an insight into how we make decisions that affect them. They can also help to influence some of those decisions and the policy and strategy that drives them. 

The sessions aren’t very long, and with us all working more remotely now, there are loads of opportunities to be involved without even leaving your home. It’s really quite a low effort way to give back and help improve things for you personally and all Progress tenants.

Do you want to join future Tenants’ Talk sessions and tell us what we can improve? Find out when the next dates are here:  Tenants' Talk | Progress Housing Group (progressgroup.org.uk)