Wakefield and District Housing

Interim Manager designs and implements a change programme affecting 1,400 employees

The brief

Wakefield and District Housing (WDH) is a Registered Social Landlord and is the largest single housing stock transfer organisation, responsible for over 31,000 homes.

Not content to sit on its laurels, WDH, which is already an Audit Commission three-star-rated organisation, last year commenced an ambitious people-focused change programme entitled ‘Shaping our Future´ to drive the organisation forward.

BK Cornerstone Interim Manager, Fiona Murie, was initially commissioned to lead the programme, and was later given responsibility for heading the Organisational Development Team.

All in all, Fiona has spent 12 months with WDH acting as change catalyst and critical friend.

The challenge

WDH needs a workforce with the right skills, motivation and leadership to move forward in a changing business that includes managing an ageing population, an increase in housing demand and the challenges of climate change.

However, previously WDH had been operating under policy and procedures inherited from the Council and these no longer reflected its needs. As a starting point, the organisation needed to review how it recruited, rewarded, developed, motivated and managed its employees.

WDH decided that an interim manager would be the ideal solution to establish and implement the ‘Shaping the Future´ change programme, which affects a diverse workforce of 1,400 employees.

Tight timescales are the norm these days and this programme has been no exception as the goal was to implement the two-year programme within four months ready to hand it over to a newly recruited team.

How an Interim Manager helped organisational development

Fiona´s remit in her interim management role was to direct an organisational development team of 35 people whilst holding overall accountability for the programme.

She and her team introduced project disciplines and governance, including the production of the PID and the plan and development of key products. In addition, they developed and delivered an integrated communication strategy, recruited for key posts and conducted progress reporting.

Fiona managed performance, developed individuals, worked with trade unions and other partners, mentored programme staff, represented the department at a strategic level and helped steer corporate strategy.

The benefits

• WDH now has a learning and development strategy to promote personal learning, clarify responsibilities and focus development on strategic objectives.
• A competency framework has been launched to help recruit the right people, communicate standards of behaviour and support the appraisal process. This is being implemented in the performance appraisal process from April.
• Cumbersome processes have been reviewed, and streamlined versions are being introduced.
• A job evaluation process has begun, followed by a pay and grading exercise.
• A software package is being implemented from April that will manage payroll in-house, provide management information, give managers and employees access to personnel records and help manage attendance.
• Project benefits include increased motivation, efficiency and productivity, and reduced clearance times, operating costs, headcount and office consumables.

For more information on this case study, or for an informal discussion on how an interim manager could help your business, please contact Justin Mills at BK Cornerstone on 0113 397 6221.