Luminus moves forward in 2010

Saturday 30th January 2010

The successful achievement of Luminus Group's business objectives in 2010 shows Luminus achieving top customer approval ratings, achievement of the government's Decent Homes Standard and a reshaping of the organisation to continue to be fit for the future, which will involve a small reduction in the maintenance services teams.

A key business decision by Luminus several years ago brought forward investment in home maintenance, reduced the number of contractors employed and created new jobs for trades staff. During this time, Luminus has also created apprenticeships and exceptional training opportunities, resulting in many trades employees gaining multi-skilled qualifications. The company is proud of its national reputation as a good employer and customer approval ratings back up this approach: 95% of customers are satisfied with the quality of work and 97% are satisfied with the overall standard of service provided.

The Luminus investment in its people has also won many national accolades including Investors in People, the RoSPA Health and Safety Gold Award for five consecutive years and No.1 ranking among The Sunday Times 100 Best Companies to Work For employees' work-life balance and well-being.

Now, in 2010, having invested approximately £100M in its homes, Luminus is reshaping aspects of the business, aimed at sustaining its record of customer satisfaction, introducing new and more efficient ways of working, while achieving a 5% reduction in staffing (19 out of 333 employees).

Following on from the monthly Luminus Conferences during 2009 and early 2010, which have helped all employees and tenants representatives focus on the strategic direction of the business, staff affected by the new arrangements, as well as employee representatives, have attended consultation meetings, along with ongoing support for individuals from the company's HR Business Team.

Chan Abraham, Luminus Group Chief Executive said, "The Luminus story is a continuing journey of transformed lives and excellent outcomes, creating hope and inspiring faith in the future. With a commitment to giving the very best service to our customers who continuously express confidence in us, supported by training and developing employees who are passionate for excellence, we are looking forward to sustained performance in 2010.

"Each New Year brings challenges, an opportunity for a fresh look at the way we do things and the need to change appropriately. Over the last 10 years we have achieved some outstanding results, with continuous improvement in customer service that is reflected through the positive feedback we receive. We have exceeded our promises to customers, increased the level of our investment in maintenance and we will achieve the Decent Homes Standard in 2010. We have been able to do this partly through our choice to "grow our own" trades staff, rather than use contractors and by bringing forward investment originally planned for later years. This has meant we have had more people working for us on maintenance services than other landlords, who mostly rely on contractors, with benefits for many more residents in the quality and quantity of maintenance activity. So we have had a unique approach in many ways.

"In looking to the future we have been listening carefully to feedback from customers, who play an active part in helping reviewing services, and from our employees, and this has helped our thinking about aspects of reshaping the business. Taking forward elements of this, we have begun to talk with our employees about the best way to achieve a small staffing reduction in our maintenance service, aimed at increasing our efficiency, achieving more cost effective surveying and increasing further the level of customer satisfaction when we are working in people's homes. We are in a process of consultation with each individual affected as well as our employee representatives. We expect the process to be complete at the beginning of February 2010.

"Change can be unsettling, but is part of normal business activity and vital to enable progress to be made. We are working closely and sympathetically with everyone involved, seeking to ensure clear communications at all times and proper support and advice for individual staff members. We have kept all our people informed about these changes and they will continue to play an active part as we seek to take customer service to a Premium Brand level of satisfaction."

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