Housing Officer

Riverside; City Of London; Hybrid; GBP 39,000 - 48,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive pay

Generous pension

28 days holidays

Flexible working

Learning and development

Employee benefits

Job summary

Riverside is a leading not-for-profit housing association, managing thousands of homes across the UK. Riverside seeks a Housing Officer to manage designated neighbourhoods, deliver customer-focused tenancy support and ensure service standards across East London patches.

You’ll work in a hybrid pattern, based from Arlington Road with travel to properties in Camden and surrounding areas, supporting vulnerable residents and ensuring sustainable tenancies through proactive engagement and

Qualifications

• Understanding barriers faced by vulnerable and diverse customer groups.
• Proven track record delivering high-quality customer service, ideally in housing.
• Team player with a caring, empathetic, flexible approach and resilience.
• Ability to remain calm in a pressurized environment.

Responsibilities

• Pro-actively manage, maintain and improve designated social housing neighbourhoods and tenancy conditions.
• Maximise income collection and support benefit claims and arrears processes.
• Represent the Group in court for cases in your area and keep stakeholders updated.
• Act as Account Manager for customers and properties, liaising with stakeholders for effective services.
• Monitor patch profitability, minimise void rent loss and manage tenancy sign-ups and visits.
• Manage a delegated discretionary budget with compliance to financial controls.
• Provide quality assurance for communal areas and escalate service failures as needed.
• Promote self-service tools and digital channels to improve efficiency.
• Engage with local stakeholders and attend community meetings as relevant.
• Build strong relationships to identify customer needs and sustain tenancies.

Skills

Vulnerable customer support

Customer service excellence

Team collaboration

Calm under pressure

Job description

Job Description

Job Title: Housing Officer

Contract Type: Permanent

Salary: £43,777.03

Working Hours: 35 Hours per week

Working Pattern: Hybrid, Monday to Friday

Location: Arlington Road,Camden NW1 7HE

The difference you will make as a Housing officer

The office base will be Arlington, Camden please be aware the patch will be East London however this may be subject to change. As a frontline worker you will maximize the economic viability, social sustainability and self sufficiency of the tenancies in your patch through targeted support, services and action, establishing and maintaining strong relationships with customers. You will work collaboratively as part of a committed team that puts the customer first by delivering an outstanding housing management service across a number of defined properties.

About you

We are looking for someone with

• An understanding of the barriers faced by vulnerable and diverse customer groups and individuals with complex needs.
• Proven track record of delivering a high quality customer service function, preferably in the housing sector
• Be a team player with a caring, empathetic, flexible and have a resilient, can-do attitude.
• Ability to remain calm in pressurized environment

Why Riverside?

At Riverside, we're a housing association with a difference - enhancing the everyday for all our customers. For 90 years, we've been revitalising neighbourhoods and supporting communities by providing the homes they need to live full, fulfilling and rewarding lives.

We have a portfolio of over 75,000 affordable residential and retirement homes across the UK. Our work ranges from homelessness services to social care, employment support to retirement living, and we need the best people on board to help us.

Working with us, you'll enjoy:

• Competitive pay & generous pension
• 28 days holidays plus bank holidays
• Flexible working options available
• Investment in your learning, personal development and technology
• A wide range of benefits

Diversity and Inclusion at Riverside:

We are inclusive. At Riverside, we value diversity in all its forms. We foster a workplace where all individuals are respected, empowered, and heard. Our commitment to inclusivity drives our success and enriches the lives of our customers and colleagues.

Role Responsibilities

• Pro-actively manage, maintain and improve designated social housing neighborhoods; dealing with all aspects of tenancy conditions, including service failures, creating, promoting and adopting a culture of customer care in accordance with agreed processes, standards, timescales and targets.
• Accountable for maximizing and increasing income collection, working in partnership with Shared Service colleagues to ensure good payment practices are established from tenancy start, support customers with benefit claims, signposting for advice and carrying out home visits during arrears pursuance process.
• Represent the Group in Court for all cases brought against customers in your designated area, ensuring cases are progressed effectively and efficiently and relevant stakeholders are kept up to date with developments and outcomes.
• As an "Account Manager" for the customer and property, be responsible for identifying issues which can be resolved with early intervention, be responsible for liaising with internal & external stakeholders to ensure services and actions are effective and efficient to build lasting, satisfactory and sustainable tenancies.
• Accountable for 'patch profitability', minimizing void rent loss, identify cash leakage, working in partnership with Shared Service colleagues to carry out inspections, property viewings and managing tenancy sign-ups and new tenancy visits.
• Manage a delegated discretionary budget, making decisions regarding the allocation of your budget, ensuring Group financial controls are adhered to robustly and effectively.
• Provide quality assurance for all communal areas in your patch, escalating contracted service failures to the relevant contract owner for resolution, and resolving other issues using the relevant procedure.
• Other Duties
• Commission, direct and influence other teams as appropriate to resolve low level anti-social behaviors issues, hate crimes, domestic abuse and issues impacting community cohesion, escalating complex cases to the Community Safety Team as appropriate.
• Maximize the use of mobile technology to ensure the provision of an efficient and proactive customer service to customers.
• Champion and promote usage of the online self-service facility, to contribute to ongoing financial efficiencies across the Group by reducing the demand on front line resources.
• Work collaboratively with a range of stakeholders to deliver customer involvement objectives and stakeholder management within a specified area, attending community meetings where relevant to the Group and its customers.
• Build effective and strong relationships with customers, identify customer's needs and aspirations, provide targeted support and use of customer intelligence to drive tenancy sustainability.
• Provide clear, supportive and accurate social housing advice to customers, colleagues and other stakeholders, including signposting where appropriate, to ensure awareness of the service and the effective progression and resolution of cases.
• Act as an advocate for customers, both internally and externally, where appropriate to ensure their expectations are maintained, and they are receiving the appropriate levels of service.
• Work with customers to minimize and resolve issues and complaints, liaising with the Customer Complaints Team to resolve escalated complaints as required.
• Promote opportunities for customers to engage with and be involved in key decision making through our customer involvement function, to ensure the delivery of a service that meets their needs.
• Work with regional colleagues, providing local intelligence on neighbourhood level issues to contribute to the regional planning process.
• Ensure internal business processes are followed in line with the Group's policy, procedures and statutory requirements.
• Maintain accurate records using appropriate systems, ensuring the integrity and quality of Social Housing service data, to enable regular analysis to be carried out and reporting to be completed as required.
• Contribute to the continuous improvement of processes and procedures.
• Accountable for organizing your own work, priorities and objectives to meet the organizational goals, with the focus being "self-led" with customers need and requirements at the forefront to improve the areas for which you are responsible for.
• Respond flexibly to any necessary changes in work priorities and undertake other duties when required to support the effective operation of the service.
• Build relationships with local stakeholders in order to foster partnership working to deliver shared neighbourhood improvement.
• Ensure that all data protection requirements are met in accordance with the Group's policy, procedures and statutory requirements.
• Ensure that health and safety requirements are met in accordance with the Group's policy, procedures and statutory requirements.

Additional Information

• The Group has offices across the UK and on this basis, there may be the requirement to travel to other locations to effectively perform this role, albeit that regular support will be required to teams in Camden and Dartford
• The role will be exposed to sensitive information; therefore, the role holder is expected to always maintain levels of confidentiality.
• In order to fulfil the requirements of this role, you will be required to work flexibly during the hours of operation.
• It is a requirement that the role holder holds a current, valid UK driving licence
• The role holder is expected to be committed to equal opportunities and to promote non-discriminatory practices in all aspects of work undertaken.

Person Specification, Essential Knowledge & Experience

• Proven track record of delivering a high-quality customer service function, preferably in the housing sector.
• Effective stakeholder management, both internally and external to the organization.
• Customer focused with excellent communication skills, both verbal and written, with the ability to work at all levels within the business.
• Excellent attention to detail with the ability to work under pressure, deliver to strict deadlines, and manage conflicting priorities.
• Proven track record of successfully solving difficult problems.
• Proven track record of demonstrating initiative to proven activities.
• Ability to remain calm in a pressurized environment.
• Proficient use of a range of IT packages including Microsoft Office.
• Excellent team player who can work flexibly to meet business requirements.

Desirable

• Experience forecasting and managing a budget.
• Experience setting work priorities and arrangements, being self-led and working with minimal supervision

About Us

Riverside is one of the UK's leading not-for-profit social housing and regeneration organisations, owning or managing around 75,000 homes from Irvine to Kent. We are a leading provider of supported housing services, particularly for those affected by homelessness, and our track record of transforming lives and revitalising neighbourhoods dates back over 90 years. We have plans to build over 15,000 affordable homes over the next decade.

Our Values and Behaviours Creating an Inclusive Environment