Social Housing Strategy Forum – It’s still all about people

Having worked in the sector for nearly 15 years, it’s been like coming home, talking to leaders about the challenges the sector still faces has shown me why I love working with some of the most caring, passionate, and dedicated people who truly want to make a difference for the communities and people they serve.

There have been four key themes I have noticed from my conversations with attendees, these are fundamental things that Sysdoc are incredibly passionate about:

• Process Excellence
• Data Intelligence
• Transformational Change  
• Organisational Design

With many of the organisations we have spoken with they are either at the start or in the process of moving forward with mergers, by far the biggest theme was around Leadership and Culture.

There has also been a huge amount of discussion about how moving to a more agile world requires a real focus on how to maintain and strengthen the existing culture, to fit the new world we all operate in.

Creating a sense of purpose

According to a report on Global Leadership, purpose-driven companies experience the following benefits for being actively and authentically engaged in leading a positive culture:

• 12% higher engagement levels than non-purpose driven ones.
• 14% of colleagues are more likely to stay and the overall culture tends to be more positive.
• Purpose-driven companies outperform the rest of the market by 42%.

An organisation is made up of one of the most complex operating systems ever created - human beings.

Culture is one of the most complex and important concepts for any organisation. It’s the essence of who you are, the deeper level of basic assumptions and beliefs that are shared by colleagues.

Culture operates unconsciously. In many organisations, culture is ‘taken for granted’.  

Culture can be deliberate or organic. Either way, all organisations have a culture.

Understanding and being involved in the culture of your organisation requires to ask yourself if you are you comfortable with the way things are or do you need to do something about it.  

At work we aren’t just our jobs; we are all the hopes, fears, dreams, aspirations, challenges, and experiences that we all have as humans. 

Everyone has a part to play in the culture of an organisation, it is not just something that is done to them, as colleagues we are invested in the culture every day.

We spend a lot of our waking life at work, so it seems reasonable that colleagues want a sense of engagement and purpose with what they do for a living.

So, at the very least, instilling a sense of purpose and caring about your culture in your organisation must be an approach worth considering?

Data-led insight with a human lens

A great culture isn’t always easy to find. The more you make the effort to see a person first, before the organisation, the easier it is to create the stories that are truly engaging and inspire your colleagues.

At Sysdoc we have passion for People and Culture, and we have been talking to attendees at the forum about how using data can really support the journey.

At Sysdoc we have been developing the Culture Camera^TM.

The camera can help organisations to visualise their cultural mix and we can utilise the data to creates snapshots of an organisation, exploring how colleagues experience the culture today and how they would like to experience it in the future.

It also supports how leaders recognise positive and shadow behaviours, which influence the perception of the culture within the organisation.

To find out more about the Culture Camera^TM please get in touch.

Reconnecting with friends old and new at the Social Housing Strategy Forum has been truly inspiring and shows that the sector has not lost any of its passion, there are great stories to tell and more importantly great people to tell them.