One of the largest housing associations in the UK is to train all its 2,000 staff in how to recognise and reduce fuel poverty. Despite recent reductions in energy bills and a comparatively warm winter, fuel poverty is still a major issue, with 2.3 million households unable to heat their home properly, and that number is set to rise further in the next decade.
The social landlord believes that any successful environmental and sustainability strategy needs to be underpinned by a behaviour change campaign that engages staff – and gets them thinking about how their actions can impact positively on the environment and their customers. This is further supported by their Environmental Strategy and Action Plan, which sets out objectives to promote sustainability at a strategic level, addressing the operational impacts of the business and promoting sustainability to their staff, customers and the wider community.
Midland Heart owns and manages over 32,000 homes across 54 local authorities in the Midlands and the East of England. As a large organisation, with over 2,000 employees dispersed across geographical areas, training staff can be difficult. Midland Heart has taken an innovative approach to ensure staff are up to speed on fuel poverty and sustainability issues and have recently acquired from Baker Homes their full suite of elearning modules covering courses on fuel poverty, climate change and energy efficiency.
Carl Larter, Director of Assets at Midland Heart (pictured) said “The e-learning package we have purchased is cost effective, requires a fraction of the time to complete, can be used to train one to thousands of employees and is highly engaging. We aim to reduce our carbon emissions via commuting and business transport, energy consumption, waste management and responsibly sourcing goods and services, plus much more. Making easy access to training is key and needs to be more convenient, plus removing the planning and inconveniences required in getting the trainer and staff in the same place at the same time."
Andrew Eagles, Managing Director of Baker Homes:
“Over 2.3m households are in fuel poverty. We are seeing more and more landlords ask for training on these and other related issues. Many people want training that is more flexible.
The initial focus is asset management, fuel poverty, compliance, funding and renewable energy. We are looking to add to these courses in 2015. Midland Heart’s staff will be able to get up to date information on these issues from the comfort of their computers. It is great the elearning is receiving such interest.”
The elearning training is provided in 10-30 minute sessions with a short quiz at the end. Organisations can either use an elearning website set up for them or integrate the training into their own elearning system as Midland Heart have done.
The training needs of the sector continue to evolve. Midland Heart and others are using new tools and processes to help staff stay informed.
To attend the next webinar on 7th May 2015 at 10:30am on helping your staff understand and reduce fuel poverty. Register for free
Bring along your training manager or book them in for the next webinar: Thursday 14th May, 10:30am. Register here to attend This is an opportunity for you and your colleagues to find out how to implement sustainability and fuel poverty training across your organisation.
