Come on board with believe housing for a brighter future

But don’t be fooled into thinking that they are looking for the traditional silver-haired, suited-and-booted, experienced business-person – this pilot is about diversity.

The extensive advertising campaign – which begins in September – will be targeting, among others, users of social media and public transport. Buses will carry adverts encouraging people who might never dream of applying to be on a company board, to consider developing their talents and to apply.

As Bill Fullen, chief executive of the housing association, says: “Whereas, generally, when we advertise in the usual avenues, we get more mature people who are already non-exec directors, so we miss out on a certain diversity of thought.

“So we thought, why not devise something for those people who could be future board members, but don’t have the confidence or the skills right now?

Bill Fullen, chief executive of believe housing (Image: believe housing)

“We want to widen the pool of talent from which organisations could draw people who reflect the wider community better, perhaps, than the traditional board of elderly, white men in suits.

“By being part of the training programme, if a vacancy comes up in the future, with us or elsewhere in the housing or third sector, we will have equipped them with the confidence and the skills to apply, and the hope of becoming a board member.”

The initial spark came when Bill was speaking to a female employee who was very talented but was unsure how to progress to board-member level.

“I thought: maybe we need to develop our talent in-house, as well as attracting people from outside of the organisation; to work with them so that they get the confidence and skills to compete with those people who are at the other end of their career,” explains Bill.

“Our vision statement is: We believe in life without barriers, so we didn’t want people’s age, or experience, or lack of confidence to be a barrier to getting to board level.

“This is a key part of that belief – that people sometimes put barriers in their own way, saying: ‘I couldn’t possibly be a board member – it’s all these professional guys and women in suits’.

“Well, if we can burst through that barrier, then it opens up the whole different world to people who come through that training programme.

“It’s about challenging the barriers that both people and organisations put in their way, and by encouraging people to aspire to become active members of society, or to be involved in the running of what is one of the biggest organisations in Durham.”

“For me, it’s about getting that widest diversity of thought, so ensuring that younger people have as much a say in the future of the organisation as older people do, and that people from a range of backgrounds, with lived experience, feel able to get involved in running organisations like ours, or groups in their community.

“So let’s try to make sure we harness all of the talent that’s out there, instead of one small, very narrow cohort.”

While the association would be happy for any of the successful trainees to apply to be on its own board in the future, they are equally happy if they achieve a place on a board in another organisation.

“Hopefully, we will encourage people to build their skills and get some experience, and, if they get a board position with us, fine, but if they don’t, at least we’ve skilled them up to compete on a level playing field with others.”

It’s certainly an ambitious project, but Bill, and the governance team that will be overseeing the programme, are determined to make it work.

The training programme, which will take place over two years, will be funded by believe housing, and will involve a couple of days a month attending meetings in person and virtually, reading papers, and in training and mentoring sessions.

Trainees will gain experience by sitting in on board and committee meetings; training on some of the skills around governance, as well as softer skills around questioning; and team-working.

And in return for their commitment, they’ll be paid £2,000 a year and reasonable expenses.

The County Durham housing association is searching for fresh trainees (Image: Believe Housing)

People who are interested in taking up the opportunity will be able to apply for a place on the board trainee programme, between September 29 and October 28. There are no requirements in terms of experience or qualifications, all believe housing wants is people who share its vision of “life without barriers”.

“If someone has a curious mind, likes working with people to find creative solutions, cares about community, and is up for a challenge, we believe they have a lot to offer and this programme could be just what they need to broaden their horizons,” adds Bill.

“We’d encourage anyone who thinks it could be for them, or recognises a person in their community or organisation it could suit, to find out more and apply.”

Bill is also aware that the board might find themselves challenged by the trainees, in turn.

“We want the trainees to feed into the programme, as well. We will evaluate it on an on-going basis so that we know what works and what doesn’t work.

“It might be that they challenge us in the way our board meetings operate; the way we do things may be totally alien to them, so we might have to change the way we operate if the programme’s going to be a success.

“So we’ll learn something from it as well as the individuals on the programme.

“It’s dead exciting; we are all excited about it,” he says. “It just makes sense to do something like this. The traditional approach gets us the traditional response – we need to do something different to get a different response.”

One thing that believe housing won’t compromise on is the culture of the organisation. It is important that the board, their employees and their suppliers, and their customers are aligned in their values and behaviours.

This was recognised at a recent live-streamed, Best Companies To Work For event at Media City UK, in Salford, when the third-quarter staff survey results were announced, and Bill and Julie Brayson, believe housing’s director of culture and transformation, were invited to take part.

“The scores were as a result of a survey of employees,” explained Bill, “and more than 80 per cent of our employees responded to a questionnaire that asked things like: what’s it like working here; how do they feel about their manager; what do they feel about the vision for the future; and about their personal values.

“The replies create a formula that gives a score at the end – and we were delighted to be in the Top 10 housing associations to work for, across the country, and in the Top 25 companies to work for in the North East.

“The chief executive of Best Companies said that, across sectors, they’d seen the scores reduced by about 19 per cent, but in our case they’d only gone down one or two per cent – so he thought that was an outstanding impact, given everything that’s happened over the last two years. That says something really strong about our culture.”

Over the last few years, recruitment of new employees has tried to reflect this. While technical skills are important, the association endeavours to ensure that the person’s values and behaviours are in tune with its own.

“When we do surveys of customers, the highest scoring questions are always about: Are employees treating them with respect, and are employees delivering on the promises they make to customers? – so that strong correlation between people’s own sense of doing the right thing, and our value of doing the right thing, and the way our customers perceive that we’re doing the right thing.

“There’s that really strong, golden thread right from people’s own sense of cultural values and what customers expect when they deal with us.”

• Visit www.believehousing.co.uk/boardtrainee/ for information about the Board Training
• To find out more about believe housing go to believehousing.co.uk.