The report and toolkit follow the popular skills and recruitment masterclass series provided by CIH and BPC in 2022, condensing the key takeaways and tips to provide the essential components to enable social housing organisations to successfully manage their skills requirements.

The report looks at why tomorrow’s skills matter today, how to identify skill gaps and build organisational resilience alongside how to find the skills needed, build talent pipelines and strategic skills planning tools. This, alongside the practical toolkit developed by BPC, can be used to determine solutions to enable organisations to maximise the potential of their current teams and attract new skills.

Sarah Dunkerley, director of professional development at CIH, said: “We are delighted to launch this social housing skills report and toolkit which provides an easy-to-use resource, assisting housing organisations to successfully assess and manage their skills requirements, signposting to the many professionalism tools and qualifications available to housing professionals and organisations.

“Every day, housing professionals create opportunities for people to find a home from which they can build the rest of their lives. The work we do is so important, which is why everyone working in the sector must demonstrate the right knowledge, skills and behaviours to drive positive culture, meet regulatory requirements and comply with new government legislation.

“At CIH, professionalism is at the heart of everything we do, supporting members to champion the role that housing professionals play in making a difference to people’s lives and uniting us as a sector.”

Ria Bailes of Bailes Partners Consulting added: “We all know that it is a challenging environment for social housing and so having the space to think strategically about long-term skills planning can be tough. However, if we don’t plan for the skills that we need in the future we will be caught in a cycle of skills shortages and not be able to perform at our best.

“Housing professionals that we work with continually tell us that skills needs are a worry. Not only is there high demand for skills in a competitive labour market, but there are emerging skills needs hurtling down the line at us. Traditional models of purchasing skills are not providing us with a reliable solution and can negatively affect existing employee engagement. We see more employers choosing to develop skills internally and seeking guidance on how to do this effectively given the time and investment required.

“The report we have produced with the CIH explores key areas for strategic skills planning. We are pleased to provide the accompanying toolkit which offers practical ways to ensure your organisation has the skills it needs to deliver your corporate objectives. Both documents are useful resources for managers who need to ensure they have the right skills in their teams to perform.”