Staff take time out to Talk Neighbourhoods

Almost every one of the 200 Guinness Trust staff was involved in its first 'Talking Neighbourhoods Day' on Thursday 1 October. The event was designed to give them an opportunity to talk directly to customers in their homes and neighbourhoods about the services they receive and any improvements they would like to see.

Whilst a number of staff continued to provide responsive services from Guinness Trust's offices, colleagues from all areas of the organisation took this opportunity to get out from behind their desks to explore Guinness Trust estates in London, the South and East areas. In the main, staff were deployed to areas in which they hadn't visited before, and by viewing and reporting on the estates and developments with "fresh eyes", they were able to provide a valuable insight as to where we can look to improve both the neighbourhood and the services we are providing.

In addition to exploring many of the Guinness Trust sites, staff took part in a door knocking exercise in which they used a short questionnaire to ask residents for their views on where they lived, and what they thought we could do to make it better.

Nadia Ramdhan, a Development Project Manager based at Guinness Trust's Welwyn Garden City office, said: "This was a really interesting exercise for me as I am not normally involved in the housing management side of things. We were given some simple questionnaires to help us find out what tenants liked most and least about where they lived and to hear their suggestions for what might be improved.

"It was really enjoyable meeting customers face to face and I was particularly impressed by how much they valued the caretaker service on the estate I visited."

Guinness Trust Director, Kathy Mohan, said: "This was a fantastic opportunity for our staff to get out and meet the customers that we serve and to gain face to face feedback on what they think we could be doing better. The nature of our work means many colleagues are office based; this provided them with a welcome opportunity to get out from behind their desks and experience first hand the neighbourhoods that we operate in.

"It is vitally important to Guinness Trust that we not only talk to our customers, but that we actually act on what they tell us, so we will be using our customers' suggestions to explore new ways in which we can really make a difference to local neighbourhoods and the lives of the people that live in them."

Guinness Trust is committed to providing the best possible service to our customers, so days like this are hugely valuable to us an organisation as we strive to create and maintain neighbourhoods in which our customers are proud to live in.

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