Sharing our GREAT stories

Hi, my name’s Ian. I’m the Chief Executive of New Charter and I’ve been with New Charter from the start. When people ask me what we are, I say we are a social business, we are a social business providing a service to over 20,000 tenants and family members across the North West and into Nottingham and we are in the Top 100 Sunday Times best companies to work for. So two of the things that tell me we are doing great is firstly we have one of the highest tenant satisfaction rates of any housing association in England and secondly it’s a company that provides great homes, in great neighbourhoods and with great people. People who are genuine, people who respect our customers, people who are excellent in what they do, people who help us to achieve and they do that together.
 

Hi, my name’s Rob, and I’m a Property Maintenance Officer. I’ve been with New Charter for 4 weeks and I started in July 2009. What I really like about my job is my work/life balance. Although I’ve only been with New Charter for 4 weeks I’ve made a real difference already, I’ve helped a disabled gentleman have a whole new kitchen and bathroom in just 10 days.

Gedling Homes is a new company and there’s lots of exciting changes for customers and I’m really happy to be part of that.
 

Hi, my name’s Adele. I’m a Housing Support Officer based at Aksa Housing which is a BME housing association. For anybody out there who doesn’t know what BME stands for, it stands for: Black Minority Ethnic.

One of my success stories I’d like to share with you is a client of mine who was a victim of domestic violence, she was going through a really, really bad time and started drinking. So I have worked with the police and I have worked with Social Services and I have managed to get her into re-hab. I made sure that she has got all of the right benefits, secured a tenancy, put some security measures in place. The children are now thriving in school, my client is now doing voluntary work and she has just completely and utterly turned her life around, it’s made such a great difference because otherwise these children will have gone into care. It’s a success story to me anyway. It makes my job great and it gives me great job satisfaction.
 

Hi, I’m Marilyn and I’m an Onsite Supervising Caretaker with New Charter. I enjoy the variety, every day is different now I’m involved in other sites they are all to a high standard but we are always seeking ways to raise the bar and get them even better. The last great thing I did for New Charter was actually this morning where I was helping to judge the GREAT awards which is an in-house scheme which I think is unique to New Charter, employees of the company get the opportunity each year to nominate within the company people that they think have really achieved for the GREAT awards.

I enjoy working for New Charter, it’s a fabulous company to work for, there are so many opportunities, it’s so diverse. You can do your NVQ’s, you can go as far as your degree, it’s just full of opportunity.

Before I joined New Charter I actually lived overseas and had my own company. And when I came back to this country it was a whole re-evaluation of what I wanted to do with the rest of my working life, I didn’t want to be chopping from job-to-job. I came across New Charter because my mum was actually a New Charter resident in one of the sheltered schemes. She loved it, she loved the whole concept of New Charter and what they were trying to achieve at that time they were fairly new.

As I love people and love the idea of helping build communities, I applied and was fortunate enough to get the position. I think that it’s a fabulous company and I really don’t want to work anywhere else which is why I am now embarking on training that will help me continue to work with New Charter even after 65.

You don’t need to stay static in one job all the time, you can diversify, you can go into different areas and they will support you all the way. It is just a fabulous company to work for, the benefits are tremendous, it’s just like working for a family company. They are all about communities and community involvement and if that’s the sort of thing you love then you’d absolutely love working for New Charter.
 

Hi, I’m Kathryn and I’m a Customer Service Adviser. I have worked for New Charter for over 10 years since day one. I started as a Clerk, then I went to a Rent Control Assistant, and now for the past 8 years I have been a Customer Service Adviser.

On a day-to-day basis I deal with a whole manner of customer enquiries, anything from repairs to re-housing a whole family. They encourage you to go on training courses, I have completed my NVQ Level 3 in Housing, and I also completed a HNC (Higher National Certificate) in Housing.

Anyone can call into the Advice Centres, no appointment is necessary, and I might see as many as up to 40 people in any one day. Working at New Charter has definitely increased my confidence, I remember at school I was very shy, sometimes it was misinterpreted as stand-offish, but now I’m a Customer Service Advisor, I’m bubbly.