Helm aim for continued improvement at annual conference

Helm Housing have reflected on the successes of the past year and looked to improve on all targets in the year ahead at their annual Staff Conference held in the Ulster Museum.

Speaking after the conference, Michael McDonnell, Chief Executive, said: Helms Annual Staff Conference allows all of us to come together to review what we have achieved over the last year and see how we can build upon our successes and improve in the future. We know how hard all our staff work and it is important that events like this recognise their efforts and allow them to have their input into how Helm operates.

Michael McDonnell, Helm Housing Chief Executive

This year we completed 128 new homes and managed to increase to 92.33% the number of maintenance responses met within target time. We also exceeded our target for disabled adaptations, with 86.84% being competed in time, while tenant satisfaction for repairs & maintenance services has risen to 93.01%. Staff absence has once again fallen, showing the dedication of our team at Helm to delivering on our commitments. Our targets will increase again for the year ahead and we aim to complete 16 new homes this year, as well as beginning construction on 130 more.

The conference recognised the work of staff with awards. The categories were Staff Awards, voted for by all members of Helms staff, and the Chairs Award, nominated by senior management and awarded by the Chair of Helm Housing, Liz Cuddy. They also made special presentation of long service awards to six members of staff who have each been in Helms employment for over 20 years together they have more 140 years service.

Chair''s Award winners and nominees: (L-R) Eóin McShane, Rosemary Campbell, Hugh Kearney and Leeann Vincent. Pictured with Michael McDonnell and Liz Cuddy (Chair of Helm Housing)

Staff Award winners and nominees: (L-R) Brendan McClafferty, Charlotte Baxter, Nichola Casey, Colin Flanagan and Elaine Trainor. Pictured with Michael McDonnell and Liz Cuddy

Staff Award Winner Elaine Trainor pictured with Michael McDonnell and Liz Cuddy

Long Serving Staff Members: (L-R) Rosemary Campbell, Brian Warnock, Alison McBride, Susan Campbell and Rosemary Friars (George McConnell missing from photo). Pictured with Michael McDonnell and Liz Cuddy

Mr McDonnell continued: Ultimately Helm exists to meet the needs of our current and prospective tenants, and as a social enterprise we are ensuring our focus is on continuous improvement through our Helm Excel programme.

Helm Excel is a broad-based change programme launched in the autumn of 2013 following the finalisation of our new Corporate Strategy to 2017. More specifically, Helm Excel seeks to instill a high performance culture grounded in our six corporate principles, namely Being trustworthy, Customer focused, Target driven, Quality services, Continuous improvement and Working together.

Mr McDonnell added: In addition to the set targets, our team has shown its commitment to the community through our consultation with tenants in a number of areas regarding tenants involvement. As a result of this eight Tenant Champions have been elected to represent their areas. Helm also was involved in helping local schools deliver the Respect programme by providing copies of the Respect - Your Life, Your Choice booklet to two primary schools in East Belfast, which was launched by the First Minister.

The challenge for the whole Helm team will be to continue to improve on all our targets, while building and strengthening our relationships with all our tenants, stakeholders and communities.
 

Guest speaker Will Haire (DSD)

Siobhan Mullan, Head of Corporate Services

Will Haire presents a prize hamper to Barbara Leathem. The hamper was raffled to raise funds for CLIC Sargent