Responsive Repair

For many Housing organisations there are an average of five properties a week that become vacant and are handed to the Repairs Team to inspect for any maintenance works required before they are re-let. Typically, the Repairs Team will visit each property and arrange for any repair works needed to bring them up to a ‘minimum lettable standard’.

This work will then be carried out by the In-House Team or one of the Housing providers 3rd party contractors. The time taken to get a property back to minimum lettable standard can vary, however the average time taken last year was 36 days. With the use of technology, housing departments can better manage and reduce end-to-end voids times.

This can be achieved in a variety of ways such as carrying out the capture of voids specifications via a mobile workforce management solution, allocate the work of operatives and subcontractors through a dynamic scheduling tool, and managing costs, invoices and re-charges with a fully integrated, modern job management platform. Organisations can also build transparent relationships between customers, contractors and sub-contractors, resulting in better efficiencies and greater productivity.

One of the main benefits is the ability to co-ordinate your workforce through intelligent scheduling meaning you are able to send the most appropriate person, in a nearby location, to the right job at the right time. In addition to assisting with planning, the use of technology also permits a great deal of flexibility: allowing supervisors to allocate work or enabling your workforce to create appointments and schedule work for themselves for the same day on their mobile device. Not only does this help reduce the mileage of your mobile workers (which equals fuel savings) but it’ll also help you to increase the number of jobs completed per day.

Voids management software helps your departments work together, from your workforce completing a survey, your call centre re-routing appropriate teams to immediately updating accounts. It is this integrated approach that offers you one view of all processes, providing you with a seamless way of reviewing data, which allows your voids to be fit for purpose sooner.