What does this image say to you?
Empowered older person about to do some repairs?
Or
Health and Safety nightmare?
If it's the latter you'll probably hate the concept of our Starting Well Engineer, which aims to build confidence in our customers on how to use and repair their home. It's also part of wider thinking across Bromford which aims to move away from paternalistic services that get in the way of people's natural skills and abilities.
Under the concept, engineers will visit new tenants around two weeks after they move in and coach them on small DIY jobs including stopping leaking taps and toilets, bleeding radiators, replacing fuses and identifying minor heating and electrical faults.
Jason Holder - who's on the concept team explains:
“As Bromford increasingly focuses on offering customers a far more coaching-led approach, we are keen to explore whether this evolving relationship between customers and our repairs team will lead to improved resilience in our communities as well as a reduction in these types of call-outs which we believe customers could be able to do for themselves”
We tested the concept at the end of last year and although it was a hit with customers it failed to demonstrate that we could justify the service financially.
Here in the Lab - where failure definitely IS an option - we know you don't just give up on something at the first attempt.
So we've learned from the failure - rebooted the concept and initiated a pilot.
In the spirit of transparency you can see the pilot plan below.
We'll be doing a mid-term evaluation in September and whatever the result you'll be able to hear the learning here.