Managing our business to the highest standard
To make sure we deliver value for money for our customers, protect our future and comply with governance standards, regulations and law, it’s important we manage our business well. We’re all about setting high standards with an eye on going above and beyond to deliver the best for our customers and provide our colleagues with a great place to work.
Our Board, acting under the UK Code of Governance, oversee everything we do. And we’re optimising our capacity by reducing the number of Registered Providers in the Abri Group. Our group optimisation is freeing up our capacity, enabling us to build more homes and invest more in our communities. This is future-proofing our place of work to ensure we continue to deliver for communities long into the future.
As well as optimising our structure, we also ended the financial year on a strong note, retaining our A3 Moody’s credit rating and receiving an assuring G1/V1 by the Regulator for Social Housing. Both ratings reflect our financial strength and operational capabilities, which have been essential when navigating the pandemic.
With this strong foundation as one team, and recent recognition from Best Companies for our outstanding colleague engagement, we’re continuing to integrate our existing ways of working following our rebrand in October 2020. This is all about having a shared approach and offering the best possible services to our customers.
Simplifying our structure
When we became Abri we knew that the difference between our name and the name of some of our customer’s landlord was confusing. We wanted to make it simpler, so we asked our customers to let us know how they would feel about merging Yarlington, Portal and Drum Housing into one organisation called Abri Group Ltd.
Through consultation, we learned that 69% of our customers supported our proposal to merge the existing housing associations. In response we merged our legacy organisations, bringing Portal and Drum into Yarlington on 31 March 2021. We are now revisiting Yarlington becoming Abri later in the new financial year.
Our change journey
Becoming Abri undoubtedly marked a period of change for our colleagues and customers alike. How we manage change is instrumental in bringing everyone along on our journey. Here’s a look at how we’re doing that:
- colleague collaboration to unify our ways of working and become ‘one team’ through a phased period of integration. Bringing colleagues together through one set of systems.
- introduction of a new Voice of the Customer framework that keeps customers at the heart of everything we do.
- creation of a new customer portal, making it easier for customers to access our services how and when they choose.
- continuous improvement of how and where we work, from digital tools and resources, to improving the look and feel of our offices.
- provision of a range of change learning and development tools, communications channels and specific training for colleagues in different roles and areas of the organisation.
Our change journey continues, with the confidence that our customers and colleagues are with us too.
