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Work Life Balance in Housing
Associations
Executive Summary
Barony Consulting Group Limited
88 Windsor Court, Chase Side,
Southgate,
London N14 5HS
Tel: 020 8886 2462
Email: info@baronyconsulting.com
www.baronyconsulting.com
www.wlbforhousing.org.uk
www.centre-for-egovernment.com
© Barony Consulting Group Limited/ Housing Corporation 2003
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Executive Summary
This report was undertaken as part of an Innovation and Good Practice project
into worklife balance within Housing Associations. The project involved building
capacity in worklife balance and surveying eight Associations, launching an
online Guidance Manual for CEOs and Senior Managers at the NHF HR and IT
Conference on www.wlbforhousing.org.uk and providing this report for the
Housing Corporation.
The participating Associations were:
Pavilion Housing Group
Ujima Housing Group
Liverpool Housing Trust
Aspire Housing Group
Shepherds Bush Housing Group
East Thames Housing Group
Saxon Weald Housing
Endeavour Housing Group
A total of 812 staff were surveyed anonymously in the early part of 2003 and this
report examines the findings and makes recommendations on flexible working
and human resource management issues within the Housing Association sector.
The respondents’ answers were profiled by gender, location and race. The data is
held electronically and was analysed in various ways. The main findings are;
 Women consist of around 60% of the survey;
 Most gender based responses were similar except in a few areas;
 There is substantial employee demand for increased flexible working with
nearly 70% wanting homeworking compared to the 13% who practiced it;
 Most staff wanted fairer and more equal flexitime schemes;
 The main reason for flexible working personally and organisationally was
to achieve increased productivity;
 Employee motivation and confidence in their managers was high;
 However, few considered promotion was on merit and women particularly
did not know what to do to get promoted;
 Harassment levels are high particularly for Asian women. Associations are
running considerable employee risks through claims under duty of care;
and
 A number of employees had underutilised skills.
We have produced a range of recommendations for Associations, the NHF,
regulators and inspectors in relation to worklife balance and the findings and
evidence from staff surveys and focus groups.

The benefits of particular types of flexible working should be actively
communicated to Associations whilst reminding them of the high levels of
© Barony Consulting Group Limited/ Housing Corporation 2003
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demand from their own staff. This could be done through
www.wlbforhousing.org.uk which can be developed into a centre of
excellence for associations.

Homeworking projects should be developed with the objective of improving
customer service and productivity. The primary benefit is through
increased productivity. This is clearly demonstrated by Chief Executives
and Directors who homework. These Chief Executives should be acting as
role models and become champions within the sector. We believe that
Associations can build upon the lead they have to improve perceptions
about working in the sector. With nearly 70% of staff wishing to homework
and 13% currently participating, Associations should be promoting,
implementing and extending more schemes.

There is strong demand for flexitime within Housing Associations.
However, due to the perception of abuse of systems, we recommend that
a review of flexitime schemes is undertaken throughout the sector with the
objective of improving customer service, reducing the perception of abuse
and designing fairer and more consistently implemented schemes. In the
area of resident satisfaction, we have clearly demonstrated that staff see
flexible working as leading to improved opening hours and access, which
in turn will improve customer satisfaction

We recommend that harassment health checks are undertaken to quantify
and monitor the harassment problem. This should use the Harassment
Index (See Appendix) as a basis of measurement. The Audit Commission
should include measures of human capital such as flexible working and the
Harassment Index as part of their Inspection regime.

Specific interventions should be designed to eliminate any harassment.

Action should be taken to eliminate any harassment within the sector with
priority being given to that experienced by Asian female staff.

Associations should produce revised guidelines for managers on
appointments and promotions, motivation and appraisal to combat the
views that appointments are not based on merit. As part of the appraisal
process, all staff should be informed about what they have to do to be
considered for promotion.

In order to fully utilise the skills of their staff, Associations should set up a
framework for skills audit which is designed to identify, develop and use
the staff’s skills and competencies.

The Housing Corporation in its regulation of outcomes for Associations
should ensure that the issues raised by this report are dealt with
effectively.

Due to the growth in the number of Associations and the problems
experienced in staff retention, recruitment, career development,
© Barony Consulting Group Limited/ Housing Corporation 2003
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harassment, gender issues and employee risks, it is essential that the NHF
reviews the type of Human Resource services provided to members.
© Barony Consulting Group Limited/ Housing Corporation 2003
www.baronyconsulting.com
Appendix
Harassment Index
What is it?
The harassment index is a measure of harassment by type and source
experienced within an organisation. This is classified into physical, verbal, racial
and sexual harassment by type and into colleagues, managers and clients by
source. It is the sum of the percentages of harassment experienced from clients,
staff and managers. This can be analysed by organisation, staff group, gender
and ethnic background. The figures are then shown on a baseline of 100 and are
expressed as a bar chart as shown below.
Derived from an analysis by staff questionnaires, it provides a measure of the
current level of harassment. This measure has already helped to reduce
harassment in some organisations by identifying and focussing on its occurrence.
The Human Cost of Harassment
Apart from the time lost through harassment, the sickness and anxiety and even
suicide, the human cost is substantial. Recent estimates in the Housing
Association Sector alone set the cost of claims at £350M. This can have a
substantial effect on the bottom line and affect the viability and operational
performance of Associations. As part of risk and inspection programmes, it is
therefore important to monitor and quantify harassment levels.
Whilst an organisation may have a zero tolerance policy, our research shows that
there is a large gap between the actual level of harassment and zero tolerance. It
is essential that this gap is reduced and eliminated.
How Does your Organisation Rate?
The results of our recent research shows considerable underlying levels of
harassment. The results are shown below by organisation. The lowest result
shows an index value of 19.
Rather than emphasising zero tolerance, which may have the effect of
suppressing reporting, the focus should change to making an organisation
harassment-free. In these terms, interventions can be based upon what is helpful
in achieving a harassment-free organisation.
We have outlined underlying levels of harassment as an aggregate and by
Association in the chart below.
© Barony Consulting Group Limited/ Housing Corporation 2003
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Housing Associations
Harassment Index Chart
0
20
40
60
80
100
Index
The levels of harassment shown above indicates that experience of
harassment is high within the sector and immediate action should be taken to
identify and reduce these levels.
How can the Harassment Index be used?
On the basis of 'what gets measured gets managed', in today’s environment of
reducing stress at work and increasing claims for harassment, then it can be used
for;







Harassment health checks;
Identification and quantification of harassment by gender and ethnic
group;
Designing effective interventions;
Measuring the effectiveness of interventions;
Reducing the risk of employee claims;
Helping to reduce and eliminate harassment; and
Reducing organisational stress.
© Barony Consulting Group Limited/ Housing Corporation 2003
www.baronyconsulting.com
Application of Harassment Index
In order to make comparisons of levels of harassment by gender and race, the
survey data was analysed and compared accordingly. The Harassment Index
reflects the sum of the respondents’ harassment from clients, colleagues and
managers. Analysed by race, Asians experienced high levels of harassment.
When further analysed by gender, male Asians experienced far less harassment
than Asian females or any other ethnic group. This means that there is excessive
and unacceptable levels of harassment of female Asians within the sector which
should be immediately addressed.
This table shows the harassment index score by race.
Race Harassment Index
Race
White Caucasian
Asian
Black & Others
0
20
40
60
80
100
Index
The following tables show the harassment index by gender and race. Female
harassment is higher across the races except for White Caucasians with Asian
females being particularly affected.
This is in contrast to Asian males who have the lowest levels of harassment.
© Barony Consulting Group Limited/ Housing Corporation 2003
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Female Harassment Index
Race
White Caucasian
Asian
Black & Others
0
20
40
60
80
100
80
100
Index
Male Harassment Index
Race
White Caucasian
Asian
Black & Others
0
20
40
60
Index
© Barony Consulting Group Limited/ Housing Corporation 2003
www.baronyconsulting.com