How to... employ your tenants

Three years ago, registered social landlord Novas-Ouvertures couldn’t find applicants for housing support jobs and was forced to rely on temps. It found the solution was right on its doorstep – the landlord offered the jobs to its hostel tenants and homeless day-centre users.

“We were having difficulty getting people,” says Michael Wake, chief executive of Novas. “Yet we were sitting on top of people who have enormous experience of these situations.”

The difference between this scheme and other back-to-work projects is that it guarantees people real jobs, as well as training, Wake adds. Novas sees it as a great success: 40 of its 850 employees have come through this route and by 2006 it wants 30% of staff to have done so.

To bring your tenants into the workplace, start by deciding which tenants you want to target. Novas chose to focus on its homeless tenants because they were in most need of a hand back into working life – 99% of them were unemployed when the scheme began.

Then decide which jobs to offer them. Novas chose not to restrict the scheme to low-level opportunities. Every job that comes up – whatever level or department – is advertised to tenants.

“Some organisations employ ex-clients as counsellors or in ancillary jobs such as cleaning, which is fine. But our jobs are offered throughout the organisation: they’re in the audit team, management team and development team – they don’t have to be pigeonholed,” Wake says.

Attract their attention

To reach your target group, advertise the scheme in the right place. Novas produced attention-grabbing leaflets that were distributed to its hostels and day centres with an invitation to open days about the scheme. This approach proved popular: 68 people turned up to the last open day, well up on the typical attendance for tenant meetings.

Novas holds the open days every six months and organises talks about the types of job on offer, what the association does, what the training programme offers and some of the issues surrounding getting back into work.

Some tenants may have the skills to apply for jobs straight away. In housing, as Wake points out, experience is often as valid as qualifications. Training will still be needed, however. Ask interested tenants to fill in an form listing their relevant skills and experience and what sort of work they’re interested in.

This will allow you to do a skills audit to see what additional training they need. If their experience and enthusiasm gives them potential, you can begin training them up. Novas Employment Works, the association’s training scheme, provides the training.

Train up your talent

If candidates need basic training in literacy, numeracy and computer skills, you may be able to team up with a local college, which should provide this training for free. Novas supplements this with core training in issues such as equality and diversity and what a housing association does.

Once tenants have these skills, start them on work shadowing in the area they’re interested in, training all the while. Review their progress every month, and when they’re up to speed on the needs of the job and one becomes available, you can offer it to them.

Even when they start the job, careful monitoring and support should continue, as the tenant may have been out of work for a long time. For the first six months, Novas’ tenant-employees meet each month with a support group made up of others who started at the same time and their initial trainer to assess how things are going.

Make sure you’re aware of any potential problems related to mental health or addiction. Wake says these can be worked around if a tenant reveals them when they apply for the course. For example, if the employer knows that a member of staff suffers from bouts of depression, it can give them time off during those periods.

Doing things this way should not add greatly to your wage bill: the main outlay is £60,000 a year for a manager to run the scheme, plus part of the time of two support workers, including a refugee counsellor who offers help with learning English. Training costs come under Novas’ overall training budget.

Some members of staff may have concerns about suddenly working alongside tenants – even some of Novas’ most enlightened staff felt uncomfortable about this. But tenant trainees have proved to be no different to any other new people. Wake says: “In my office, a number of people have said to me they wouldn’t know which people came from our employment programme.”