About Glasgow Housing Association (GHA)

The Senior Management Team introduced an initiative called Excellence Week, designed to celebrate recent successes at GHA and to involve all staff in looking at plans for the future. This involved a number of events held over a week including Big Breakfast, an initiative which saw teams meet over bacon rolls and coffee on Monday to discuss what they would do if they were Chief Executive. Ideas were collected and fed back to the Chief Executive who discussed the key themes when he met staff groups later that week. Martin Armstrong, the Chief Executive, has led a far-reaching transformation of the organisation, his passion, commitment and expertise in delivering modern, responsive, customer-focused services making the difference. He regularly visits staff and involves them directly in the vision for GHA. He believes GHA has a unique opportunity to help people in Glasgow who most need it and he carries staff with him, inspiring them and motivating them. He believes passionately that empowering staff and tenants is the single most important thing the organisation can do to realise its vision of ‘better lives’.

GHA knows face-to-face communication is the best way to get staff involved. During periods of change or when new initiatives are launching, the Chief Executive Martin Armstrong takes time out to go round local offices having face-to-face meetings with staff. He talks to them in an honest, open and inspirational way, challenging staff to give their views and listening to their feedback. Teamtalk, their internal communications strategy, ensures information is cascaded to every member of staff to facilitate team discussion sessions and staff are encouraged to give feedback to managers. They have a strong culture of listening to feedback from all surveys and external assessments, celebrating successes and putting in place improvement plans to address all issues highlighted. Their journey to deliver excellent services for their customers has been hugely influenced by survey feedback and external assessment. Staff are involved in shaping the improvements they put in place, through their teams and in joint forums.

Winning the Scottish Award for Business Excellence, Scotland’s top business award, was a tremendous achievement for GHA in 2011. The Chief Executive was keen to show all staff his recognition of their hard work that made this happen. He wrote to all staff and personally thanked them for their hard work, passion and commitment and he decided to reward staff with an extra day’s holiday. His personal address and the extra day off made every member of staff feel their part in the organisation was recognised right from the top.