Housing associations face growing pressure to deliver high-quality maintenance and repairs services to their tenants. Whether it’s because of ageing properties, tighter budgets or stricter regulations, the challenge of maintaining homes is greater than ever.
As tenant expectations continue to increase, amid a cost-of-living crisis and rising utility bills, maintenance is now at the forefront of a housing association’s responsibilities.
In this article, we explain why a general housing management system is not enough, and why a dedicated repairs and maintenance system is the only way to achieve effective and efficient responsive repairs.
The benefits of a dedicated repairs and maintenance system
A robust repairs and maintenance system is essential for housing associations to meet operational, regulatory and tenant service needs. Here are the key benefits:
Enhanced tenant satisfaction and engagement
A dedicated system for repairs and maintenance allows social housing providers to promptly respond to tenant maintenance requests. They’ll also be able to achieve accurate diagnostics and efficient scheduling of repairs, all of which will help to provide a better service and boost tenant satisfaction.
Using helpful features, such as tenant portals, real-time status updates and automated notifications, tenants will be able to stay informed and engage with housing associations easily. This will help to foster trust and keep residents happy.
Efficient resource management and cost control
Housing associations can also optimise workforce and material usage, tracking labour, inventory and costs associated with repairs. Using dynamic scheduling tools, resources can be accurately allocated to improve first-time fixes and reduce unnecessary costs, such as repeat visits and overtime.
Job costing features and analytics will also help gain better cost visibility and control, rewarding housing associations with full transparency of the entire process of delivering repairs. Plus, this can inform future business decisions and help to reassess budget allocation.
Regulatory compliance and safety assurance
Housing associations must comply with strict regulations around safety inspections, asset maintenance and record-keeping. With a dedicated repairs and maintenance system, you can benefit from automated scheduled maintenance and safety checks, such as gas, fire and asbestos management.
This provides audit trails and facilitates reporting capabilities to document compliance and avoid regulatory penalties.
Data-driven decision-making and strategic planning
With integrated data analytics, repairs and maintenance systems help housing associations gain insights into maintenance trends, asset longevity and tenant needs. Therefore, access to this data helps proactive planning, budget forecasting and capital improvement decisions.
Plus, it also enables strategic asset management, identifying where to focus resources for long-term property and community value.
This means you can make informed decisions based on accurate data to help drive your housing association forward.
Operational ability and scalability
If you’re a social housing provider with an expanding housing portfolio, then you’ll need help managing increased volumes of repair jobs and work orders. A repairs and maintenance system will streamline workflows, support mobile access for field service operatives and adapt to changing tenant demographics, so you can get the support you need as operations increase.
This allows associations to respond effectively to growth and complexity in property management.
Dedicated repairs and maintenance system vs general housing management system
A dedicated repairs and maintenance system offers specialised functionality and operational efficiencies that a general housing management system typically lacks.
By choosing to implement a repairs and maintenance system, you can benefit from the following advantages:
- Specialised features for maintenance efficiency: Unlike general housing management systems, repairs and maintenance systems are designed specifically for managing workflows, scheduling and resource allocation for repairs. Specialised features ensure quicker response times and more effective resource management.
- Higher first-time fix rates through accurate diagnostics: Advanced diagnostics and tenant self-service portals help accurately assess repair needs before sending operatives on-site. This can lead to higher first-time fix rates and reduce the need for follow-up visits.
- Enhanced operational visibility and real-time scheduling: Real-time views of operative locations, availability and skillsets allow for dynamic scheduling and routing optimisation. This means housing associations can make adjustments throughout the day based on real-time data, so resources are used efficiently and downtime is reduced.
- Advanced reporting and predictive analytics for maintenance: Specialised reporting and analytics can provide insights into repair trends, asset performance and cost control. This supports predictive maintenance and informs budget decisions based on the lifecycle needs of assets.
- Compliance and regulatory tracking: Compliance with regulations (gas safety, fire safety) is streamlined within a repairs and maintenance system, which typically includes modules for tracking inspection schedules, maintaining audit trails and ensuring that all work meets regulatory standards.
How can ROCC help?
A general housing management system can serve as a good overall tool for overseeing various aspects of tenancy and property management, but to achieve high performance, a housing association will need a dedicated repairs and maintenance system. This way, an organisation will benefit from a tailored approach to managing and delivering repairs.
At ROCC, our multi-functional social housing repairs and maintenance software suite enables key performance indicator improvement whilst reducing operational costs. We deliver end-to-end service and operation management for the entire responsive, planned and cyclical maintenance of all your properties and assets.
Take back control of your housing maintenance service and keep the communities you serve happy with the help of ROCC.
For more information, get in touch with our customer service team.
