Over the past 18 months, we have been growing our In-House Maintenance Services (IMS) team in Bristol and South Gloucestershire to create a single in-house service for LiveWest.
It has seen an increase in customer satisfaction with a 7% rise in customer satisfaction for the quality of a repair and a 3% increase in overall customer satisfaction.
Work in this area was previously delivered by contractors through our North Maintenance Partnership team.
The in-sourcing took place across responsive repairs, voids, kitchen and bathroom installation, electrical testing and gas servicing and repairs.
Around 100 colleagues have joined our teams, underlining our commitment to create new jobs and improve the opportunities for the local economy.
By bringing these services in-house, it has allowed us to further expand the scope and geography of the services self-delivered by LiveWest.
Liane Sheppard, our Director of Property Services, said: “We have worked hard for the last few years to gradually insource key services and works to help ensure that we are providing improved customer service across all the areas we operate in.
“Bringing our repairs and maintenance in-house is improving service quality across all our homes in the South West and it has been a huge success.
“Insourcing builds in-house capacity, facilitates the joining up of services, shores up financial flexibility, manages quality standards and improves customer experience.
“We have continued investment in our teams to ensure we have the right amount of support to deliver a quality repairs and maintenance service that is customer focussed and responsive. It’s exciting times for the LiveWest property team.
“Also we are aware there is a current skills shortage across the region. In view of this,, we reviewed our terms and conditions for current and future colleagues to ensure we are offering an attractive rewards programme. We’re also investing in the future and have a great apprenticeship programme.”
LiveWest is also increasing pathways for apprenticeships to ensure a diverse and inclusive workforce.
This includes a recent Women in Trades campaign which aimed to attract more women into practical careers.
We appointed 26 apprentices, trainees and improvers last year and seven of those were female which represents 27% of the new arrivals.
It means we now have 16 females working across our 420-strong trades workforce.
That equates to 4% of our total workforce and we are aspiring to increase that to 5% in the near future.