With nine thousand properties situated across the Neath Port Talbot County Borough, Tai Tarian is Wales’ third largest housing association and employs just over five hundred staff in a number of roles.
Tai Tarian is committed to the wellbeing of the communities it serves, offering a range of services and community engagement programmes to benefit this cause.
From providing diverse support services to managing repairs and maintenance in-house with its own Direct Labour Organisation (skilled trades), including window and door manufacturing and installation, Tai Tarian prides itself on being more than just a housing provider.
THE CHALLENGE
Celebrating its sixth anniversary in March 2017, Tai Tarian is well-established and making a huge contribution to the communities of Neath Port Talbot. After this encouraging start, the organisation felt it was time for a culture shift in order to increase customer focus and drive operational efficiency.
The aim in 2016 was for Tai Tarian to move away from the mistaken outward perception of being a council service; a restructure and a new corporate identity was needed to aid this shift. Embarking upon a restructure meant that engagement with staff was essential in order to ensure a smooth transition.
Culture changes were also starting to take place amongst Tai Tarian’ leadership, with Senior Management making an intentional shift from managing to leading and exploring positive ways to develop staff.
With a large number of employees working remotely, Tai Tarian faced the challenge of bringing teams together to provide a streamlined service. A system was needed to capture the voice of all staff , wherever they worked; for everyone to feel included and that their opinion was valued.
KEY OBJECTIVES
- Provide a way for staff to raise issues and concerns safely, particularly during a season of change
- Promote healthy discussion on the company’s continued growth and improvement
- Encourage connection with and input from remote workers
THE SOLUTION
After exploring different tools to support staff engagement, including an internal system, Tai Tarian felt that an external portal would be a more trustworthy option for staff , who prefer to receive external notifications rather than email correspondence from management directly.
WorkInConfidence Protect was implemented in September 2016, with two managers allocated to provide responses to incoming dialogues. Using the Push Questions functionality, management were also able to send an initial engagement review in October.
Most recently, Tai Tarian has started to implement forums through WorkInConfidence Share & Excite in order to promote whole team discussions in a neutral online environment.
THE RESULTS
By giving employees a chance to raise their voice anonymously, Tai Tarian received a range of genuine concerns and helpful questions through WorkInConfi dence. By the end of Christmas 2016, over a hundred dialogues had been submitted by employees.
The initial question about Tai Tarian’ engagement process received the most dialogue, while other submissions included ideas about new groups, technology enquiries, and questions about processes and decisions made, with a handful of employees sharing observations which could lead to potential problems.
THE REWARD
During a time of immense change, WorkInConfidence has allowed Tai Tarian to maintain essential communication with employees across the business. Since the initial push, management has been able to address and resolve dialogues received. A second engagement review was sent via Understand & Learn surveys in January 2017, with positive dialogues being submitted – employees are happy to have the system available to use if they require it.
Moving forward, Tai Tarian will also be encouraging the use of WorkInConfidence Share & Excite forums to enable whole team discussions on a range of relevant subjects. This will bring new teams together following the recent company changes.
