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Swan Housing Association

About us

Organisational information

Formed in 1994, Swan Housing Association (Swan) exists to fulfil its social purpose to enable as many people as possible to have ‘somewhere to feel at home’. Swan provides high-quality affordable homes to rent and buy, working in partnership with the local authority, Borough and GLA and Homes England Partners and other stakeholders.

Swan operates in East London and Essex, locally managing over 11,500 homes, including social rent, shared ownership, NHS accommodation and supported schemes.  Swan have always been a regenerating landlord and currently have a secured development pipeline of over 8,000 homes to be delivered using both traditional and offsite construction by its in-house developer Swan Commercial Services. Swan has its our own offsite modular housing factory which Swan are using to build high quality modular homes including fully customisable homes. Every penny Swan make is reinvested in homes and services for its residents.

About so much more than just bricks and mortar, they transform the communities in which Swan work by investing in these communities and their customers. As well as high quality public realm, community spaces and high-quality homes, Swan deliver life changing services such as training and employment support and community engagement and activities, on top of a quality property management service (under the subsidiary, Hera). It is this holistic approach that has earned Swan a reputation as one of the UK’s leading regeneration housing associations as well as a host of prestigious awards.

Swan are proud to provide care and support services including domiciliary care and support services, sheltered housing for older people and those with special needs, as well their inspirational accredited foyers that accommodate young people including young parents and their children. Swan also own a number of women's refuges and provide a range of specialist services to support the NHS workers.

Corporate Strategy 2020-2023

Recognising the changing external environment that Swan were operating in and how our business has evolved over the last few years, our Board and Executive Team worked together over 5 virtual sessions during lockdown to develop a new Corporate Strategy to take us through to 2023.

These sessions allowed the Board to refocus on our purpose, agreeing that Swan existed “To find better ways of doing things so that Swan improve lives and communities. Every day.” They selected a simple clear mission statement committing Swan “To deliver brilliant customer care and great places to call home”. Together with a simple clear statement of values Swan expect all our staff to live by:

Making a difference
Being inventive and solutions focused
Being open and fair
Caring about every customer

The Board are confident that this refreshed strategy will allow Swan to continue to lead the way as an innovative housing provider.

To support Swan to deliver on this refreshed purpose and mission the Board agreed to adopt 7 corporate strategy workstreams:

Build Customer Trust

Better understand our customers
Implement an end to end review of customer service
Develop our own dimensions of trust model
Enhance our customer contact channels

Maximise Out Talent

Develop our leaders
Embrace inclusion, equality and diversity
Grow our own talent
Deliver agile working culture

Provide safe, quality homes

Adequately fund investment in existing homes
Build beautiful new homes
Engage our customers
Ensure Swan have the resources to deliver

Build financial capacity and resilience

Raise additional funding
Capacity through partnerships
Ensure Swan have the financial resilience to cope with adversity
Optimise the performance of our social purpose and commercial activities

Love the planet

Increase our focus
Inspire our customers and people
Reduce our carbon emissions
Monitor policy, legislation and best practice

Deliver digital first

Develop more solutions for self-service
Use data to greater effect
Develop our core systems and complete our move to agile working
Future proof our customers’ homes

Grow responsibly

Deliver on our commitments
Understand our impact
Ensure our commercial property portfolio performs
Grow our modular housing business

The new strategy took effect from October 2020, so this Strategic Report uses the seven Corporate Strategy Aims to report on our key strategic performance this year.

Project Boards have been established for all workstreams, each chaired by one of the Executive Team and regular meetings taking place. Delivery is being strategically monitored against all 89 actions.

Customer Satisfaction

From September 2020 Swan implemented a new approach to measuring customer satisfaction using measurement by the Institute of Customer Service. This gave us a 3 out of 5-star rating from our customers. This also provided significant feedback to enable us to improve our service looking forward in line with our new Corporate Strategy. To September 2020 78% (78.3% 19/20) of residents were satisfied with our overall service and 81% were satisfied with the quality of their home.

202 Stage 1 Complaints received – a reduction in more than 10% on the previous year
100% of complaints were responded to within 6 working days (target 98%)
92% of people were satisfied with the complaints procedure (target 86%)

Looking forward

The work that Swan have initiated with the Institute of Customer Service Excellence has enabled us to conduct a detailed survey over 600 residents and the findings from this survey has set the approach for our Customer Trust workstream for 2021/22. This work will also be central to our wider response to the Social Housing White Paper and the Building Safety Act.

Key findings of the survey showed us that our customers want:

To deal with staff who care, show empathy and keep their promises, whether that’s calling back when they say they will or taking ownership to fix a problem
It to be easier to get in touch with quicker responses on emails and improved self service on-line.
Appointments that fit with their lifestyles.
To be kept updated about the status of their repair or issue and any follow ups needed.
A good quality and friendly repairs service.
To be kept informed and have more regular updates from Swan.
More notice for things that impact them, such as rent increases or changes to service charges.
To feel heard, understood and know that their problems are being taken seriously.
Swan to be transparent, open and honest.
To know they are getting value for money for their rent and service charges.

Employee Satisfaction

Maximising our talent

Swan’s most recent independent employee survey in May 2020 saw a small reduction in its overall employee engagement levels. Swan has worked through the pandemic to keep its employees informed about the impact of Covid and how Swan are adjusting services. This resulted in a 2% increase in employees saying their manager “shares knowledge and important information with me.”

Swan has also increased its focus on wellbeing to support all its employees either field based or home working as well. Swan was pleased that it also had a 2% increase in the engagement levels and that employees felt “happy with the balance between work and home life” during this time..

“I feel totally supported by Swan and have always had great support from my manager/s, I have been allowed to flourish within my work, it’s great to work for a company that believes in you and your worth”.

“I am impressed with how everyone has pulled together in such difficult times, to ensure we are all able to continue with our work with minimal problems, whilst maintaining good health. Communication has been outstanding, and it has certainly made these weeks in lockdown very manageable and stress free”.

Health and Wellbeing

Swan’s second phase of its Health and Wellbeing strategy has been rolled out, and despite some reshaping of delivery mechanism to respond to Covid -19, highlights have included:

New Policy launched
Weekly wellbeing Wednesday’s introduced for whole group – giving one hour every week to all staff to focus on health and wellbeing
7 Self-care & Recovery sessions to support our managers to manage in Lockdown
Understanding Menopause session held

Lifestyle Matters – Getting that work/home life balance just right

A lot of Swan employees have been successfully working from home for over 1 year now, so that work/home life balance for a lot of individuals has drastically changed. Moving forward and looking at how Swan staff return to its offices, Swan will be adopting hybrid working – so working in a space or environment that best suits your work activity. No more does it mean working in the office every day, but it also doesn’t mean working from home every day either.

Mental Health Matters – Educating and looking after the mental health of our employees

Our EAP (Employee Assistance Programme) Provider run information sessions available to all staff, to give a full overview of our EAP programme and how it can assist them. This also saw the launch of the EAP app ‘My Healthy Advantage’. The app is also available to all staff.

Swan run Employee Mental Health training
In addition to this, in March 2021 Swan launched Perkbox. Their website and app are designed to add value to every lifestyle in the following ways:
Perks – Access hundreds of perks to save money on everyday purchases. This will assist with Financial Wellbeing.
Boxx – a free online hub where employees can access exercise and yoga classes. This will assist with employee health and wellbeing.
Aura – the ultimate & personalised meditation and mindfulness app which includes more than 3,000 meditations, life coaching, stories and sounds, which focuses on a variety of topics including stress, sleep, anxiety, focus, confidence, relationships, and much more. This will assist with employee health and wellbeing, and mental health.