Project Completion: believe housing

 

Our recent project completion saw believe housing celebrate the opening of their new offices in February 2020 following a 19-week fit out and furniture installation programme.

believe housing is one of the largest housing associations in the North East of England, providing services to over 18,000 tenants, stretching from the Durham coast to the North Pennines. The award-winning housing association recently agreed a 15-year lease of a three-storey office at Spectrum Business Park to replace its existing accommodation in Seaham.

 

 

In addition to the new office, their existing premises have been consolidated and its Bishop Auckland base redeveloped as part of a long-term strategy of improving services to believe housing customers by being more flexible and responsive. The adoption of new ways of working and IT equipment has also enabled believe housing staff to work wherever they need to across the county and improve productivity.

 

 

Ahead of completion their Board Chair, Judith Common, said: “I expect our customers to see some very positive changes in our services over the coming months as our people are able to spend more time in the communities we serve and be more responsive to the needs of tenants. We realise that even in an age dominated by digital technology, face to face contact is still really important for some of our customers. The changes we’re making will help to make sure that contact is still available alongside the latest innovations.”

 

 

believe housing were committed to transforming the way the company worked on a day-to-day basis by improving employee interactions, department collaborations and working standards all through their surrounding environment. To facilitate this and as a starting point, we conducted a Workplace Study giving an overview into the organisation’s biggest assets, the building(s) and the employees.

 

 

This provides an insight into the workspace usage patterns over time, enabling believe housing to make connections among usage, employee feedback and space traits, and equipping them to support different work modes, all while helping justify large capital expenditures and improving the overall employee experience.

 

 

It was noted that whilst believe housing had five buildings, the occupancy was only ever at around 60% and as part of the brief it was to determine if consolidation of the estate portfolio could take place. The key was to provide believe housing with the information that consolidating from five to two offices would be beneficial.

 

 

From this study, it was found that it could be achieved and we also tracked the spaces that the employees were working in most, whether that be private/designated desks, shared seats in an open floor plan, meeting rooms and project rooms. It was found that by nature of its geographical coverage, that the designated desks were predominately in Customer Service only, with the least provided area being for the off-site business functions of site teams.

 

 

Both offices were designed by Cocoon & Bauer, to have fully agile and flexible spaces, which handed responsibility to the employees to choose where they worked and in what situation. By designing an office in this way, there was a greater emphasis on the furniture and technology proposed, so that individuals and groups of different sizes had the ability to work efficiently from different points in the building.

 

 

We then had to consider that each individual works in a completely different way, so the different wings of the building also became different ‘zones’ for working, such as; The Library – a quiet space for more individual based working; The Work Café (at both sites) – a more energetic area for collaborative work and finally, The Innovation and Training Hub – incorporating bleacher seating where teams could come together for tool box talks/presentations. The latter being located at the Bishop Auckland site to make it an individual statement in what was perceived as the “older” building.

 

 

Chief Executive of believe housing, Bill Fullen, summarised: “We looked at a variety of options when we were reviewing our office accommodation. It is not just about reviewing the space we use though, it’s about new ways of working. We depend predominantly on our people and we’re providing them with the tools they need to do their job regardless of physical location. These changes are designed to help our employees be in the right place at the right time to provide the high-quality services our tenants depend on.”