Name: Sarah
Job Title: Head of Chief Executive’s Department
How long have you worked at Jigsaw Homes? 21 years
Describe your ‘typical’ day at work
My team handles the Group’s formal complaints, MP and Councillor enquires, our Disrepair (Legals) service, tenant scrutiny projects and tenant satisfaction survey feedback. We also work with EMT on different review projects. Part of our role is dealing with complaints and enquires for all our service departments and I generally handle and respond to complaint escalations from customers. I work with senior managers across the Group to investigate and resolve issues for our residents. I also review our ‘insight’ data from customer feedback for any recurring themes and emerging issues to raise awareness and suggest improvements.
Which aspects of the job really get you motivated?
Problem solving. I enjoy the investigation aspect to my role and understanding the root cause of an issue. I think I would have made a cracking Detective!
What are the greatest challenges?
Dealing with our more challenging and sometimes unreasonable customers. We provide homes for some of the most vulnerable people, often with mental health issues which can affect how they communicate with us. It’s important that as a team we have empathy and patience to listen to customer views and frustrations and consider how best to manage this. I think the impact of Covid and lockdown restrictions has exacerbated this for some people, which makes our role even harder some days.
What has/have been the highlight(s) of your role to date?
There isn’t a stand out moment, but it’s always nice when you turn a situation around from a negative experience for the customer to a positive one. I’ve handled some difficult cases where I’ve had to make referrals for support and received the occasional thank you for listening and offering support.
Another highlight in my previous role was when I took part in a BBC1 documentary about the work of Housing Officers and filmed with the BBC for around 6 months. This was a great experience and showed some of the great work we deliver as a social housing provider.