A day in the life of Kirsty Corbett
With Scottish Housing Day taking place this week, and this year’s theme focusing on housing as a career, we’re looking behind the scenes to see what our housing staff members do, and how their roles are vital in operating and continually developing the service we offer our tenants.
In this a day in the life feature, we’re following Repairs Customer Service Co-ordinator, Kirsty Corbett.
Tell us a little bit about you.
I have worked for Hillcrest for the past five years and have recently taken on the role as Customer Service Co-ordinator for the repairs team. I help manage the team and assist with call handling, admin tasks and various projects.
How did you get into a career in housing?
My career is housing started by chance after I re-located from Aberdeen. I have enjoyed my time working for Hillcrest and I’m looking forward to the future. Hillcrest has allowed me to further my education, and I am currently working towards my Chartered Institute of Housing Level 4 Housing qualification.
What would you say to others who are considering a career in the housing sector?
Working within the housing sector is extremely rewarding, and there are also a lot of career options available if you wish to develop.
Your day
We are a small team of 11 based at our Tom Johnston Road office in Dundee. We work closely with Hillcrest Maintenance to ensure we provide a high level of service. Our team are reactive, and workloads can change depending on the volume of calls or any situations that may arise.
8 am: Mornings within the repairs team can be very busy. We start receiving calls from the out of hours team at 8 am. The out of hours team provides us with a call-out report every morning, which highlights the calls that were made, including any emergency jobs that were dispatched.
As well as the incoming calls, we are responsible for repairs requests made through the MyHillcrest app, estate management, repairs emails, alterations, adaptations and satisfaction surveys. The majority of these tasks involve communication with the tenants via email or phone. Each team member will be assigned a task for the day and are responsible for completing this.
Last week there was a major incident in Edinburgh which left a lot of our tenants without water. Our team had to be reactive and organise trades staff, a housing officer and a Hillcrest Maintenance supervisor to attend the site to devise a plan of action. We also had to liaise with external contractors to ask for help with on going issue. As well as communicating externally we had to ensure that the team had the most up to date information to inform any tenants who called in for an update. It was important that we updated the out of hours provider, so they were also well equipped for calls.
1 pm: When I started my new role as co-ordinator, I was tasked with managing jobs sent to external contractors. This afternoon (as with most days), I spent a few hours of my day liaising with contractors asking for updates on jobs and updating tenants when required.
I also spent some of my time working on and improving the condensation and dampness procedure. This is a new process that the repairs team have had to learn, and we work closely with the property team to manage any condensation/damp requests from tenants, which can be a big issue that leads to mould growth if not dealt with.