In the fourth episode of The People in Housing podcast we sit down with Phil Pemberton, Director of Asset Strategy and Delivery at Riverside housing association. Alongside our Asset Management Recruitment specialist Kane, we to discuss Riverside’s challenges, strategies, and long-term goals since their merger with One Housing. From tackling operational inefficiencies to cultivating a thriving workforce of people who care, this dialogue delves into the intricate workings of one of the leading housing associations in the UK. Covering topics such as post-merger transformations, workforce development, and strategic goals for the future, this episode provides a detailed look at Riverside’s commitment to delivering quality housing and services.

Let’s start off by giving us a bit of an overview of your background in the sector and what you do at Riverside at the moment.

Yeah, first of all, hello to everybody. It’s a great pleasure for me to come on today’s podcast and give you some background on the challenges we're currently facing, and those the sector is facing as a whole.

I’ve got over 40 years of experience in the housing sector. I’ve spent many years operating at a senior management level in several housing associations, as well as in the private sector. Over the years, I’ve joined various organisations and identified and helping to solves issues affecting the repairs and maintenance in the asset management world.

I see myself as being extremely customer driven, and I like to ensure that I develop my staff so we can incorporate succession planning into our business strategies. I’m a strong believer in technology and innovation into our models, and I have various examples of that.

I really wear my heart on my sleeve when it comes to housing and asset management. I also sit on the National Housing Maintenance Forum committee, where one of my key responsibilities is leading on thought leadership, including European study tours. I also support the team in organising our annual conference, which will take place in Stratford early in the new year. I sit on the steering group of Direct Works, a similar organisation that thrives on sharing best practice, particularly in direct works and direct labour organisations, utilising the knowledge and skills of the steering group members.

Additionally, I do some work with DIN, the Disruptive Innovators Network, which links to new innovations and changes in the sector, introducing those into asset management. I thrive on being at the centre of services and aiming to improve them for our customers. And at the heart of it. I’ve been with Riverside for nine years now, which is a wonderful organisation. We serve not only our general needs customers, but we also have a large care and support service and a significant homeownership portfolio, across the country.

So, 40 years in the sector - you’ve seen and done it all! Coming into the merger, when did that happen, and what were the main objectives? What was the reasoning behind it?

Well, we’ve just marked the third anniversary of the merger. It’s no different from many other mergers that are happening across the country. Essentially, two excellent organisations came together to build on their financial strength and capacity. One Housing had a substantial amount of stock requiring building safety works, particularly cladding, which was a real pressure on their business plan. A merger partner was needed to support that business. But it was a very positive experience bringing One Housing and Riverside together, mainly because of the way the portfolios aligned.

One Housing had a strong presence in London and the Southeast, which Riverside also had, so the merger complemented our stock, especially in the South East and down to Kent right across to the South West including Bristol. Not only was it about geography, but One Housing had a similar portfolio to Riverside - general needs stock- and we were able to bring that into the group. One Housing was also strong in care and support, just like Riverside, so it strengthened our ability to support both internally and externally. We also had a large homeownership portfolio, which again complemented Riverside's strengths. Overall, there was a natural fit between the two organisations. Riverside is now a key player in the G15, and we have a large portfolio across the country.

No pressure for you, then!

There’s pressure for everyone in housing, but personally, I support the business in looking after our London and South East stock, which spans both One Housing and Riverside’s portfolios. My key responsibilities are around repairs and maintenance, as well as ensuring our gas compliance is at the highest standard. My colleagues across asset services handle other aspects, including building safety and core asset management, ensuring the business has the competencies to deliver.

What do you think the biggest challenges have been since the merger and over the last couple of years?

The challenges are probably no different to those facing many other housing associations. The housing agenda has been huge over the last few years, especially post-COVID. With the tragic death of the two-year-old in Rochdale, which led to increased scrutiny on the sector regarding damp and mould, the quality of social housing came under the spotlight. This has highlighted areas we hadn’t focused on before.

Additionally, customer expectations have risen since COVID, and Riverside is no exception—we’ve seen a 20% increase in demand for repairs. That continues to be a challenge. Securing contractors and staff with the necessary skills and capacity to meet both repairs and building safety demands is another huge hurdle.

We’ve also had to contend with the Building Safety Act, and ensuring we meet all regulatory requirements is a major challenge. Nonetheless, we’re making good headway on the remediation of the cladding works across the business.

As anybody who works in housing will also, business plans are under severe pressure particularly with increasing construction costs due to rising salaries, material costs, and fuel prices. Riverside is no exception, and this highlights the strength of the merger, as we’ve been able to share resources and expertise.

How are you tackling these rising costs? Have you had to delay certain works and prioritise others?

Like any business, we’ve had to really think about where to focus our investment plans and what our priorities should be. An example is maintaining focus on building safety and ensuring we keep our customers safe. We’ve been successful in securing government funding, particularly for building remediation and meeting building safety requirements. We’re also looking into opportunities linked to net-zero targets, and we’ve secured significant funding through SHDF , which is helping us move forward with our projects.

Ok brilliant, so what do you think has been the biggest success so far since the merger that you're most proud of?

The biggest success has probably been around our people. This is really a people business, and although we’ve faced a lot of challenges over the past couple of years, some of our centralised teams are now driving efficiencies by streamlining systems and processes. We’re still in the early stages of this, but what’s been key is taking people on the journey with us.

What’s been particularly encouraging in London is seeing how individuals have responded to the housing agenda. They want to get out of bed each day and make a difference, and part of our work is ensuring they have the development and support they need to do so. And we're looking forward to our second staff survey to see some of the results of that. You have to go through some pain to actually make some of these changes, but in essence those on board with us now can really see the difference that those changes are making and they’re already seeing those improvements in services.

I think with any merger, there was the biggest thing you have to tackle with the people and the restructure and aligning the cultures together and getting everyone on the same hymn sheet. You mentioned earlier about the customer expectations increasing. In what way and how would you measure and monitor that?

Yeah. Well the first issue is demand. We’ve seen a significant increase in demand for services, particularly repairs. Some of this can be attributed to people spending more time at home, particularly with more working from home. It’s also a result of many of the homes built in the 50s, 60s, and 70s now needing more repairs as they reach the end of their lifecycle.

Public scrutiny on the condition of social housing and landlords' services has grown, especially with the visibility of the ombudsman and the regulator. We’ve seen a substantial increase in referrals to the ombudsman, which are challenging standards and ensuring we meet those standards within prescribed times. There’s more transparency now, and people know where to turn, which is making a real difference.

The other element is staff capacity and confidence. If we don’t have the right capacity in the supply chain, repairs will take longer. We often hear feedback from customers that repairs are taking too long, along with complaints about missed appointments and quality of work. Customer expectations are at an all-time high.

I’d also draw a parallel to how the likes of Amazon and DPD sort of infiltrated the market where you can order something online now and you get that service within 24 hours delivered to your doorstep.

Do you have a way of collecting feedback from customers? Is there a tool or set of targets you guys adhere to?

Yeah, I mean there are regulatory standards now, and tenant satisfaction measures are transparent, with very clear definitions. We contact customers after the completion of repairs or carry out random calls by independent surveyors to understand what the quality of repairs is, we call it a perception score.  We benchmark these results against the rest of the sector, sharing best practices, particularly through my involvement with the National Housing Maintenance Forum and Direct Works. We learn from each other and look at innovations in other organisations to improve our own.

How many trades are in the DLO now?

In London, we have the best part of 100 tradesmen covering all aspects of repairs and maintenance, including fabric repairs, gas servicing, and electrical inspections in-house. However, we recognise that we can’t do it all internally, particularly in London, where the market is tight. So, we maintain a mixed economy approach. Our goal is to streamline systems and processes and expand our own internal office so that brings us more control around people and culture and our ability to communicate more effectively with customers to provide a better service all around. And that's our long-term commitment here, it's a model we've exhibit great successful all around.

When the merger took place, how was the DLO performing? Was there anything you had to address urgently to bring it up to speed?

When the DLO was formed in London, it was at a bit of a crossroads. There were definitely some improvements needed, particularly around systems and processes. We made several changes early on, and now, we’re working on the second phase of those improvements and doing a more in-depth review. One area that needed significant attention was improving communication with customers, as that had been a real pain point. We wanted to improve our customer engagement and feedback mechanisms, and that’s something we’ve been working on intensively over the last 18 months.

We also invested a lot in our tradespeople’s training and development. We recognised the importance of making sure our team had the right skills and certifications, especially with the demands of building safety and new regulatory requirements coming into play. This upskilling programme has not only helped improve performance but also built greater staff morale and confidence.

Yeah, of course. And do most organisations operate off different databases? Like you've touched on there with the housing and the trades and the stock condition, or is that something you've seen previously, other roles before you joined in and you said, let's do that same here?

Yeah, it's not uncommon, know, there's a range of options within the sector, probably concentrated around it. handful of housing management systems, but when two organisations come together with different ones, it's seen as an opportunity to rationalise those and really make sure those systems and processes are streamlined for going forward. So that's not uncommon. In fact, it's not just unique to the housing world, many others, you know, we've been working with some of our supply chain partners on materials and they've recently gone through the merger of some smaller merchants and putting themselves onto one system.

So you know it's not uncommon to not just this sector but many sectors when mergers take place and you know that's the way you drive the efficiencies going forward.

Okay, fantastic. And do you use external contractors as well to support the works if you haven't got enough trades in house, or is it all purely through the in-house team that you do your works?

Yeah, we’re using a range of contractor moments. think our current database at high level is somewhere in the region of 14 key contractors. And some of that is reflected in the geographical area that we're covering. So, some of the more remote areas are better serviced by the more local contractors. And some of those challenges really reflect where we are as a business. So it certainly isn't one size fits all approach.

Exactly. Some of these challenges reflect the nature of our business. It’s not a one-size-fits-all situation, so we rely on a variety of supply chain partners. Some of them have specialisms we need, especially in London, where our stock is complex. For example, we still need specialist contractors for roof leaks on high-rise buildings and other access issues. So, the variety of contractors we use is necessary. We also have stock spread across places like Cambridge, Central London, Dover, and Bristol, which means we need at least five different glazing companies to handle the specific work in those areas efficiently.

Do you monitor and track the performance of external contractors in the same way you do your internal team? Or is it a bit different?

Yes, that’s something we’re working on improving. We recognise the importance of monitoring costs, quality, and, most importantly, customer feedback. Ensuring that our supply chain partners have the right technology, customer skills, and technical expertise to deliver on time is key. We also must make sure we comply with procurement regulations, which can add complexity. But we’re well-equipped to manage these challenges.

Absolutely. In the last 12–18 months, the candidate pool across the sector has really shrunk. Have you noticed the same in your area?

Yes, it’s definitely been a challenge to find the right people with the necessary qualities, skills, and experience. But it all comes down to how you present your offer and your ability to attract and retain talent. For us, that includes offering competitive salaries, particularly in London, where we benchmark against some of the best in the sector. We also offer flexible working arrangements, including the ability to work from home, which is really important. In addition, we provide excellent holiday schemes and are fully committed to developing our people.

Our goal is to create a positive work environment that helps us attract top candidates. I’m pleased to say that some of the efforts we’ve made in the last six months have resulted in high-quality candidates who are now on board and supporting us in becoming one of the best housing associations in the country. We’re also focused on growing our own talent and are proud of the young employees we’ve recently promoted to supervisory and team leader roles. That speaks volumes both internally and externally about the opportunities we offer. Ultimately, we want a workforce that reflects the communities we serve.

That’s fantastic. It’s great that you’re benchmarking against other providers to stay competitive. It really helps attract and retain top talent. Do you have an apprenticeship program in place to bring in younger generations into the trade?

Yes, we do have an apprenticeship program, and we’re very proud of it. However, I’ll be honest, in our London stock, we still have some work to do to expand that. But it’s important to ensure that the team who will be mentoring apprentices have the right support and training. We want to provide an environment where apprentices can come in and learn a trade. We’re also working on increasing the number of apprentices across not just the trades, but also administrative and professional roles. It’s essential to offer these opportunities

We're fortunate to have an experienced and proactive people services team that supports our apprenticeship program and provides the necessary mentoring. We also have a large pool of internal trainers to help with skill development, which is key for apprentices. Additionally, the housing sector often offers strong terms and conditions for apprentices, so we’re excited to continue expanding those opportunities over the next 12 months, ensuring succession planning is in place and preparing the business for the future.

Brilliant. It’s great that you’re promoting from within and moving people up into supervisory roles. So the 100 trades people currently directly working for you, is there a plan of what you want to get that to in the next few years? 

At this stage, we’re not setting a specific target number. But the feedback we’ve received from our customers is that they prefer us to have our own staff, but they also care deeply about the quality and timeliness of our services. We believe that maintaining control over quality and compliance, especially with gas and electrical work, is crucial. Building that capacity will take time, and we need to ensure we have the right systems and processes in place before scaling up. It’s not about an immediate shift from a mixed economy to an entirely internal delivery model. We need data and insights to understand where demand will be and how we can build a productive workforce. In London, for instance, geography and job movement efficiency are key challenges, so we need to balance internal and external resources based on demand. There's a lot of planning behind the scenes to find the right delivery model, and that’s what we’re trying to do.

As we approach the end of the year, what are your priorities for 2025? What do you have planned moving forward?
We’re continuing our journey of transformation. Every day presents new challenges, particularly with the business transformation we’re undergoing, which is closely tied to IT systems—a massive project in itself. We’re fortunate to have a very experienced team supporting us with this transformation program. Alongside the IT systems, we’re focused on improving the business processes behind them. We’re utilizing the experts within the business to ensure we have a clear path forward. This transformation will resonate with our colleagues, too, as we’re implementing comprehensive training programs to ensure that everyone is fully equipped to use the new systems and understand the processes. This will make it easier to induct and integrate new people as we grow. So, next year, we’ll focus heavily on these two strands of work. Beyond that, we’re also continuing our integration efforts, which will involve some culture changes. Defining what culture means is challenging, but embedding our company’s vision and values in the business is essential. We want everyone operating with the customer in mind, and while we’re doing well, there’s always room for improvement. In London, we’re focused on onboarding a major tier-one supplier to assist with repairs and maintenance, but we’re also collaborating with key recruitment partners to ensure we have a solid workforce for the long term. The message is clear: we want the best people to join Riverside and make a real difference for our customers.

Have you adjusted your interview style or the questions you ask to ensure you're bringing in the right people who can communicate well and contribute to the culture? 

Yes, we’ve made some adjustments. One thing we’ve noticed over the past 12 months is that recruitment in the sector has become more challenging. We’ve found that being open with candidates about the challenges they’ll face, while also highlighting how they’ll be supported, has really resonated with the right people. Some candidates have expressed that they want to be part of the change and transformation, and we’re happy to offer that opportunity. Riverside has a strong reputation within the sector, and we’re committed to maintaining that. It’s about offering our people a path to success, progression, and personal development. Ultimately, we’re focused on improving performance, providing value for money, and ensuring customer satisfaction for the thousands of customers we serve.

Okay, fantastic. We're fast approaching the end of the year. What are your priorities going into 2025? What are you looking ahead to?

Well, we're just continuing on this fantastic journey we're on at the moment. Every day is a challenge because we're going through business transformation, and that transformation revolves around IT systems, which is a huge project in itself. As I mentioned earlier, we're very fortunate to have a highly experienced team working from our head office, supporting us with this transformation programme. We've got a massive project ahead in terms of IT systems and the business processes that sit behind them. Again, we're making full use of the experts within our business to ensure we have a very clear path to move forward. This also resonates with our colleagues.

We’re putting comprehensive training programmes in place to ensure people are trained to use the equipment and are familiar with the processes. This will make it easier to induct and integrate new team members going forward. So, we have a huge programme in place on these two fronts for next year. Above all else, we're also continuing with the integration, which will bring about a cultural shift. Defining culture can be difficult, but our company’s vision and values clearly need to be embedded across the business, ensuring everyone operates in the same way, with the customer always in mind.

There’s still a lot of work to do here. Like many others, we strive for continuous improvement — no matter how well we’re doing, there’s always room for betterment. In London, at the moment, we’re focused on onboarding one of the major tier-one suppliers to assist us with repairs and maintenance delivery. We’re also working with a number of our key partners, particularly recruitment agencies, to support our long-term future. Many of our teams have been collaborating with our talent team to ensure that we get the word out about the fantastic opportunities available at Riverside. We really want the best people to come and work here to make a real difference to our customer base.

Of course. And have you changed your interview style or the questions you ask to make sure you’re getting the right people in? Particularly those who can communicate well and drive the culture forward. It’s not just about going in, fixing things, and leaving  -  they are the face of the business. So, have you adjusted your approach?

Yes, absolutely. The key thing we've found over the last 12 months is that the sector is becoming more challenging. Being open with candidates about the challenges they’ll face, while also highlighting how they’ll be supported, is really resonating with key individuals who want to be part of this challenge, this change, and this transformation.

Riverside has a strong reputation in the sector, and we want to retain that excellent reputation. Along with a good reputation comes the understanding that individuals who work here can spend time developing their careers and achieving success. What we're looking for are people who can grow with us, improve performance, and, above all, deliver value for money and customer satisfaction to the thousands of customers we serve.

Yeah, fantastic. I just want to wrap up by asking: after 40 years in the sector, what still excites you and gets you out of bed in the morning to keep doing what you do?

Well, I've been fortunate to have had a very successful career in housing. What gets me out of bed is the opportunity to make a difference every day. That could be something as simple as solving a small repair issue, where we've got systems and processes in place to make a real difference. Above all else, though, I’ve spoken a lot about people today. We have some real success stories where people who were out of work have now been employed. I've seen people progress through their careers, and I really get a buzz from seeing young people develop and organisations thrive.

For me, the people aspect is key. I think people that work in housing want to work there, they have a passion for it and they have a passion for making a difference. I thrive on the fact that that I’ve got tremendous amount of experience, but I don’t always have the answers, and I haven’t always got it right. But if people listen to my stories - even when I get things wrong - I’m honest with them, and they can learn from that. It’s all part of the learning process, and I love being able to pass that knowledge on.

Yeah, absolutely. It’s all about how you learn.

Exactly.

If you’d like to listen or watch the full episode, please follow the links below to our Spotify and YouTube channels.