RHP are having an unbelievable period of success and transformation, as their vision and strategy work of the last 5 years plus comes to fruition; as visible in the impressive stats they are now able to report as in the Awards they have been winning. In the midst of unprecedented levels of change in the housing sector, and an income stream challenged by changes to the Benefits system, they have achieved a No 1 ranking in their sector for innovation (using the dolphin index), and have also just scooped the 2016 Organisational Culture Excellence Award in the Small to Medium-Sized Business category.
Their cultural change programme ‘IamRHP’ is central to their success. This ground-breaking initiative is unique, and is built on the aspects of business that employees and customers say are vital to create excellence and promote creativity in organisations. The objective of the programme is to make RHP one of the best service providers in the country by making it easy for customers to access their services and for employees to deliver them in a way customers want. From recruitment, onboarding and beyond, RHP have redesigned their whole approach to reflect the IamRHP personality and behaviours.
As part of IamRHP, the company have launched a diverse and innovative set of initiatives to embed the cultural change, including redesigning their Learning & Development approach and building fun and business-focused activities internally; introducing a monthly Live Lounge to share learnings across the organisation and increase collaboration; and recognising and rewarding those who display IamRHP service style behaviours.
The programme has transformed the business not just through the engagement of staff but of customers, and has produced outstanding commercial results in the process. They have achieved leading levels of engagement, with 96% of staff feeling that they can make a valuable contribution to RHP’s success, and 96% believing that respect is a key behaviour shown in the company, compared with an 83% average score of top 50 Great Place to Work non-food companies. In terms of customers, the results are similarly impressive with a 24% reduction in complaints in 2015-6 and 75% of their customers saying that they are “easy to do business with”.
Despite the various accolades, complacency is not in RHP’s vocabulary and the cultural change they have effected continues to enable further innovation. In April they launched the first digital-only housing service in the UK which will result in significant operating cost savings, enabling the company to invest £250M over the next eight years in building more affordable homes across London.
Organisational Culture Excellence Showcase is the first of its kind to share the insights and proud organisational culture stories of the OC Ex 16 Award Winners and Highly Commended organisations.
The results outlined above only scratch the surface of what RHP have implemented to date.
Victoria Hillis, Starboardthinking.com
