Poor Management, salary, team and role structure
Management - Team managers are great individuals, however, they are limited by the head of department in how they manage their direct reports. Essentially, the Head of Operational support micromanages Team Managers in how they manage their direct reports. Causing an unfortunate opinion that team managers are sometimes “out of touch” when enforcing managerial directions or team action. No manager should be forced to work in such a way and it does NOT benefit the team or the service provided by the team. 1 thing I did find strange was managers would hunt you down if you was away from your desk in the office for too long, even when your role required you to be away or if you were in a meeting, to the point their line of questioning requests for a timelines and reasons as to why you were away…..very off key. This team is apart of the customer access and transactions directorate (Operational support, Customer response, Customer Repairs, customer accounts) which all teams seem to commonly displays these behaviours. AVOID at all costs
The Salary is extremely low in comparison of the Job description to the actual day to day. There are several projects ongoing which is poorly managed by the Head of Department, on top of the services we provide on a day to day basis. It is not forgiving or rewarding…a MESS.
The team and role structure needs revising. Officers and Advisors are heavily micromanaged by team managers (As per the instruction of the Head of Department) with no clear intentions of removing the invisible chains from said necks. 0 autonomy to manage your day to day. And a very unnecessary need to report every little detail to your manager. There’s around 60 services provided to residents and teams across the business which mostly are all still in a state of crisis due to the 2 existing policy’s from the 2 predecessors legacy organisations (Optivo & Southern Housing Group) for 1 service. Very little, if any, signs of progress to transform this, causes major divide between the team and the business and causes stress to residents when they are advised wrong (mistakenly) based off the wrong policy to the corresponding legacy organisation their property originates from.
Lastly, the head of department…..where do I even start? She is just unequipped and inexperienced to perform in her current role and needs serious investigating to outline if she is fit enough to continue. As a Head Of Service, it it’s professionally expected that you understand EVERYTHING about your department/service that YOU represent. Down to the core. She has exampled many occasions where she has either little or outdated levels of understand of the 60+ processes/services provided to residents and the business. Due to this, she has made several changes to the structure of these processes without consulting Officers and Advisors if said changes will align within day to day job responsibilities and the standard of quality to the service we provide….that in itself has fumbled her chances of redemption to restore the faith from her officers and advisors in her. Need I say more? I could go on forever. Bottom line is, she put in that position out of favouritism from directors, not because she is suitable for the role and as a head of service to role partially resident facing, she would crumble in a instant if she had to unpick a complex case in 3-5 working days.
