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Challenge:
Legacy workflow struggles in a mobile world
Improving technical systems is always challenging during digital transformation. Knowing where to begin is even more difficult for not-for-profits (NFP) with tight budgets, lean teams, and scarce technical resources. Bridge Housing, a NFP organisation in the social housing sector, considered improving its technical systems a critical concern in supporting communities facing a housing crisis.
“The demand for social housing is overwhelming with over 50,000 households on the waiting list,” says Sarah Barclay, Director of Information Systems & Transformation at Bridge Housing. “Households coming from rental stress need more support to ensure successful tenancies. That means our staff need to be able to spend time in our communities and with our tenants to understand their issues. This solution frees them from their desk and inefficient paper-driven admin tasks.
Bridge Housing’s legacy technology has strained to keep up with a more mobile approach to operations since the pandemic. Housing staff regularly visit properties to support tenants, report building repairs and maintenance and check property condition. Existing processes required a great deal of double data handling that wasted time and made processes prone to error.
“We needed to look at new software for our future that would support our housing workers effectively when they’re visiting clients. We also have regulatory requirements we need to meet under tenancy law. Mobile tools looked like the right way forward. We don’t want to have to open a laptop in a tenant’s home. It is about having that time to be present, make a connection and ask how we can help. To build personal connections during the three or four times a year we might visit them. We wanted our systems to help us deliver even better customer service.”
Sarah Barclay, Director of Information Systems & Transformation, Bridge Housing
In November 2021, Bridge Housing first contacted Telstra Purple for help mapping out better solutions for its technology systems. With a long wish list of upgrades and improvements, the Bridge Housing team sought guidance on how to identify its most significant problems and where best to begin a journey toward modern best practice.
The approach:
Understanding real risks and pain points
Telstra Purple saw a need to help Bridge Housing to truly understand and prioritise its technical requirements. The team brought Bridge Housing staff together for a bespoke workshop using human-centred design principles to identify what they wanted or needed to achieve, and which issues were causing the most pain or risk to the organisation. These efforts brought the various teams at Bridge Housing together to enlighten each other on how different teams needed to work and uncover common pain points. New insights were revealed by analysing the existing technology landscape, the needs of field staff, and the organisation’s pain points.
“This was drastically different from anything we’d done before. Previously we approached technology by implementing a new system to solve the problem without exploring the end user experience. Using a human centred design approach flipped everything on its head and really transformed our entire way of thinking. It was really powerful.”
Sarah Barclay, Director of Information Systems & Transformation, Bridge Housing
Through a sharply focused four-week engagement, Telstra Purple offered recommendations on existing off-the-shelf solutions that aligned with Bridge Housing’s needs from end-user (staff), business process, and technology perspectives, as well as the pros and cons of each solution. They also provided a skeleton prototype for a new mobile tool that would integrate with the organisation’s existing technology while alleviating the double handling and insecure processes currently in use.
The solution:
Creating a mindset for self-directed outcomes
Telstra Purple’s work with Bridge Housing focused on delivering actionable advice to ensure the organisation progressed quickly while minimizing costs. This featured a Goals To Prioritised Opportunities Workshop, which Telstra Purple can offer to special clients at no charge. This helped narrow down dozens of very real problems Bridge Housing wanted to address to focus on the immediate concerns that represented the biggest risks and roadblocks to progress.
“At Bridge, we have a strong approach around tenant engagement, but this helped us focus more on our staff and user engagement. The process of thinking about what the ‘wonderful future’ might be and then how you turn that into something we could deliver was transformative for us.” - Sarah Barclay, Director of Information Systems & Transformation, Bridge Housing
Bridge Housing’s existing platform operates on a multiple legacy systems that run many essential administration functions, including scheduling appointments, repairs, and housing management. While the ageing system is fragile, and re-platforming to a modern service is on the organisation’s list of future tasks, it is an expensive commitment that requires a larger investment further into the future. This required any short-term solutions to improve staff experience today to integrate smoothly with the existing platform.
Telstra Purple evaluated in-market off-the-shelf apps and services that would align with Bridge Housing’s needs. This included suggestions on which paths the organisation should avoid and where customisation projects could result in ongoing maintenance that would add to future costs.
While the workshops and prototyping were run as an agile engagement with Bridge Housing, Telstra Purple also coached their team on how to manage future decision-making and execution programs in the same way. Knowing Bridge Housing would need to implement any recommendations on its own, Telstra Purple ensured it was offering more than a list of recommendations. It advised on the transition process itself to help succeed in their adoption of new solutions.
“Telstra’s collaborative values align with those of Bridge Housing. They were very generous in the way they shared their knowledge with us. When you’re working in the non-profit space, resources are always tight. This process continues to help us ensure we are spending our limited budget in the right way and that we’re seeing outcomes being delivered. We’ve continued to use this framework on all projects since.”
Sarah Barclay, Director of Information Systems & Transformation, Bridge Housing
The final Telstra Purple prototype offered Bridge Housing a new mobile-centric form that lets field staff upload photos and data immediately into their admin systems and add the notes they needed. Through an immediate reduction in administrative load, Bridge Housing could see how its staff could be less frustrated in their daily routines and gain greater capacity to focus energy on their mission of being out in the field, supporting tenants living in their communities.
The impact:
Lean web apps saving time and precious data
Since the Telstra Purple engagement, Bridge Housing has implemented the specific recommendations provided by Telstra Purple. It now has the mobile application it needs to reduce inefficiency and enhance staff visits to tenants and properties.
“Work that used to take four hours now takes just 30 minutes. So there’s significant staff time savings. We hear a lot of the team say it has made such a difference to paperwork, meaning that they can spend more time with tenants in the field.” - Sarah Barclay, Director of Information Systems & Transformation, Bridge Housing
Their ongoing use of agile processes has also seen Bridge Housing quickly implement additional features and launch a new tenant portal where their clients can update their own details in the system when needed. “This new portal gives our tenants a great sense of agency over their data. If they’ve had trust issues previously or bureaucracy overwhelms them, knowing they can always see their own data and change details gives them a great sense of control.”
Human-centric thinking ran deeply through Bridge Housing’s implementation work, including keeping the web-based interface very lean to minimise data demands on their tenant’s phones. Fonts designed for readers experiencing dyslexia were also deployed to make the tools more accessible.
“If tenants wanted to access non-rent statements in the past, that would have required a call to our office and for a manual print out or email to occur,” says Barclay. “So far, we’ve seen over 800 downloads through the tenant portal. That’s a lot of time saved for our office staff.”
Sarah Barclay, Director of Information Systems & Transformation, Bridge Housing
Bridge Housing has also begun a wider transformation toward agile processes throughout its business. It hopes to adopt similar approaches to those Telstra Purple brought to the problem solving and execution in that four-week process.
“We think it’s contributed to developing a culture where users feel like they can give feedback and it gets acted upon, which is wonderful,” says Barclay. “It’s empowering to see people feel they can participate in change. We’ve also got some tenant users in a focus group who offer their thoughts on new features for the tenant portal.”
Thanks to its Telstra Purple engagement, Bridge Housing has grown in confidence for the future of its digital transformation journey. With each decision on which tasks to pursue next, it has a framework to serve the needs of its organisational mission – to deliver safe and stable housing to thousands of residents across Sydney.
ABOUT BRIDGE HOUSING
Through its property portfolio across Sydney, Bridge Housing offers long-term accommodation to people on low to moderate incomes. It serves over 5,600 residents living in 3,500 properties and is committed to innovative service that fosters a sense of community among tenants, contributing to the social and economic outcomes that safe, affordable housing helps achieve.
Learn more about Telstra Solutions:
- Telstra Purple Consulting Services Telstra Purple Consulting, Professional and Managed Services
