The new wave

"I took a significant pay cut to come here, but I'd got to the point in my career when it wasn't just about money," says Sanderson.

As housing associations and local authorities recognise that a growing number of private-sector workers have useful transferable skills to offer, so those workers are realising that high pay and company gyms come with long strings and no safety nets in the current economic climate. "There are massive lay-offs in several sectors. People are casting their nets for a new career," says Peter Jeffery, human resources director of Anglia Housing Group.

Disillusioned private sector staff perceive housing as an acceptable compromise between the public and private sectors. And they see housing associations particularly as welcoming environments for their business-oriented skills. "People [in the private sector] want to do something more community-based, and feel they can make an impact on society," says Angela Baron, an adviser at the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development. "There is a whole range of challenges they can't get in the private sector, which is more short-term-results oriented. In the public and voluntary sectors, people feel more comfortable taking a long-term view."

Transferable skills
Gary Sanderson's team of directly employed maintenance workers covers 3500 homes owned by Progress and other registered social landlords in the Leyland and Preston areas of Lancashire, but Sanderson has his sights set on the 65,000 owner-occupied properties in the area. "We could leverage off that customer base, and bring some more money into the association," he says.

This is the kind of thinking that makes recruitment from the private sector as attractive for employers as for employees. In the rapidly changing world of housing, it's not just Sanderson's employer that is looking for the kind of commercial attitude and skills that staff bring with them from the private sector.

RSLs in particular are expanding their recruitment horizons and selling the idea of social housing to a wider cross-section of candidates – and not before time. According to a 2001 survey of 197 RSLs by consultant Hacas Chapman Hendy, there's something of a recruitment crisis: difficulties in recruiting senior managers were reported by 37% of RSLs in the South-east and 29% in the North, while one in five respondents reported annual staff turnover running at 16-20%.

The sector seems now to have woken up to the short-termism of trying to solve recruitment problems by luring staff from nearby neighbours. "The problem is having a static pool of people in housing, moving from one association to another. We need to attract new people, not just turn over the same people," says Ronnie Clawson, head of human resources at Broomleigh Housing Association in Kent.

For the past 18 months, for example, Jane Greenoak, director of corporate services at the National Housing Federation, has worked with a group of human resources directors on diversifying recruitment and improving retention. "It's about getting the debate going, and raising the profile of housing, so that people become knowledgeable about it," Greenoak says. And if the sector's white male dominance can be broken at the same time, so much the better.

In some specialist functions, such as human resources or internal audit, candidates have always found it relatively easy to make the switch to social housing.

But now, recruitment into housing from the private sector is happening at several levels and from several different sources. Kelvin Stacey, a former director of Rank Group's gambling and bingo division, is now chief executive at Walsall Housing Group in charge of a 25,500 home transfer. Headhunter agencies such as Harvey Nash see introducing private sector candidates to RSL clients as a growth area and arrange networking events for individuals considering making the switch. Housing associations such as Southern Housing Group and Circle 33 are recruiting finance and accountancy specialists displaced by redundancies in the City or major consultants (HT 12 September, page 13): in the three months to September last year, three of the four members of staff who joined Southern were from the private sector, including one from accountant Arthur Andersen's office in Los Angeles. 

At a lower level, people in their 20s, disappointed with their first jobs in the private sector and with few financial commitments to keep them there, are particularly open to the idea of moving into social housing.

"We have noticed a shift towards caring, sharing employment opportunities," says Ann-Marie Martin, director of the University of London's C2 careers service. She points to the recent success of recruitment campaigns for police officers, fast-track teachers and local government trainees, but says there have been no comparable campaigns in housing: "The problem with housing is that people don't know about it – it isn't selling itself well enough."

However, many RSLs are actively recruiting workers from banking or retail call centres to work in their own tenant contact centres and helplines. But this isn't just about bringing in customer service skills: several associations view their contact centres as nurseries for new staff talent. Typically, recruits with no housing experience spend a year answering calls on housing's front line, then undergo further training that takes them onto the estates or leads to more responsible roles.

Career development
In the past year, Broomleigh has recruited 20 non-housing staff to its call centre, and 12 have already moved on to other roles. "Once you get them through the door, you can start developing them," says Ronnie Clawson, head of human resources. At Circle 33, two-thirds of contact centre staff joined from the private sector, entering a well-thought-out training programme.

"We started when we saw that the supply of front-line staff was drying up," says Howard Cresswell, director of corporate services.

Newspaper advertisements attracted staff from customer service roles in the banking, insurance, utilities or retail sectors. Cresswell lists the attractions: "We are more flexible on working hours; people feel they get better training and development; the work isn't scripted – staff are actually taking decisions; there's the possibility of developing more of a career, and people can identify with the end-product."

But, Cresswell adds: "We don't have performance-related pay and that's one issue where people notice a difference." Angela Baron of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development also says this is an issue that housing employers must take into account. "In the private sector, you're accountable to the amount of money you make. In the public sector, people find it difficult to know if they're adding value. Performance is more about customer satisfaction, and measured against a range of softer issues."

She adds: "Some people can find [the public sector] slow and process-driven, and they find the bureaucracy difficult to come to terms with. Things take longer, and they can't short-circuit the system as they would have done in their old jobs."

Progress Group's Gary Sanderson sees advantages and disadvantages in both cultures: "In the commercial sector, people are driven by commercial objectives. Here it's a bit more cooperative, but the decision-making processes are more protracted."

Other new recruits are also well aware of the compensations for learning a new way of working. Mark Rogers, a service centre manager for Southern Housing who previously worked in sales-led call centres, says: "In the private sector, decisions are made by a small group of people, and you only hear about it afterwards. Here, they spend a lot of time listening before making a decision."

And Janet Ashby, who formerly worked in property management with blue-chip firms including Virgin Atlantic but is now senior home ownership officer at Southern Housing Group, says simply: "It's lovely to be in touch with people, and making a difference. You know you're actually helping."