Finding the right person for the job
At NCHA we keep our customers at the heart of the services we deliver and the decisions we make.
So when we recently recruited for an assistant director to head up our care and support services, it was vital that our customers were involved in the process.
Meet Lizzie
Lizzie has been a customer of NCHA for nine years, living in a service with dedicated support that helps her live life to the fullest.
Having supported our recruitment in the past, she was the perfect choice to help find the new Assistant Director for Care and Support.
When she first got the call, she was nervous, but it was still a firm “yes”. She explains: “I’ve been an interviewer before, to help find new people to work where I live. I wanted to help make sure that we got a really good person to manage all the care and support staff and look after all the customers.”
Supporting decision making
Lizzie played a vital role - meeting each of the candidates before the interview panel, and had some important questions to ask including: ‘What is your biggest achievement?’ and: ‘Why do you think you’ll be perfect for the job?’
She fed back her comments to the panel: “I thought that all of the people we interviewed were really good, but one candidate really stood out for me, because of what she said about supporting young people who are homeless.
She talked about how important it is to work with them, and that it’s never too late to help them. She said that all they need is a bit of love and care and support, and I thought that was amazing.”
Laura Henderson, Customer Engagement Manager supported Lizzie through the interview: “Lizzie did a brilliant job! She really enjoyed the whole process and was really confident with her questions.
Her report on each candidate really helped the panel to make their final decision.”
The panel offered the role to Colette O’Neill. With a background of more than 20 years’ experience at NCHA, she’ll begin her new role in the next few weeks.
Customer engagement
Being an involved customer is really important to Lizzie. She likes to keep busy, but she also wants to give something back to the service that she says has changed her life. “This is the longest I’ve ever lived anywhere, even when I was a child. I say it all the time, NCHA has changed my life. I love living here and I want to help out.”
NCHA have wide-ranging opportunities for customers to get involved in. Find out more on our get involved pages.
Our dedication to customer engagement was recently recognised with a new tpas accreditation; find out more about Our Plans for Customer Engagement.
