Vocation
Vocation
Vocation

Investing in communities,
not just buildings

It is important to us that we build on the good community work we have achieved to date and seek opportunities for collaborative working with communities, occupiers, Joint Venture partners and neighbouring owners.

Investing in communities makes business sense
Who is our ‘Community’
Our Community Engagement Programme
Fiona, our community champion
2007/8 Target Review
2008/9 Targets

Investing in communities makes
business sense
Through investment in and engagement with the community in which our assets are located, we can contribute to improving the public realm and facilitate community integration of an area to ensure that it will be one that occupiers, owners and customers would be attracted to, both now and in the future. Through working in partnerships to reduce crime, raise skills and employment levels and promote health and wellbeing, we can contribute to developing a pool of healthy and qualified labour in the catchments area of our assets. We believe this increases the probability of maintaining or improving the rental values and of ensuring the long term value of our assets.

Who is our ‘Community’
We view our communities as:
The people who live, work and spend their leisure time within or in the vicinity of a Hermes managed property and the wider communities that are impacted by our business operations.

We realise that the ‘community’ is different for each property type and for each location. For example, at one of our retail properties the community would typically include shoppers, employees, local residents, nearby hospitals, leisure facilities and schools, and local community organisations. A commercial office on the other hand would need to focus more on engaging with its occupiers and neighbours.

What is important is that each property understands its own community, how it interacts with its community, and what contribution it can make to improve it. This is now happening in a growing number of buildings across our portfolio, with 62 category 1 & 2 properties having community initiatives in place.

Our Community Engagement Programme
Many of our buildings, especially in the retail sector, have been involved in community engagement for many years. For them it makes good business sense to work with the community and support the local economy.

Learning from this example, we began to spread the idea of community engagement to our other sub-sectors, and in 2006 we set community engagement as one of the key RPI challenges in our publication ‘Defining the Challenge’. As a starting point we developed best practice tools for our Property Managers (PM’s) as part of our Responsible Property Management (RPM) Programme, which enabled them to identify and monitor community engagement at our properties.

This programme has proved a great success and we have collected comprehensive information from across our portfolio, which is used to share best practice.

Fiona, our Community Champion
We recognise that community engagement can be a particularly challenging idea for many of our PM’s. To support them, in 2007 we recruited Fiona Essam to our RPI team to oversee the implementation of community initiatives across the entire portfolio. The appointment was made to raise the profile of this aspect of our work and to provide all PM’s with a highly experienced and knowledgeable contact to help them capitalise on the opportunities available at the properties they manage. Fiona has made a great impact in her first year and our PM’s value the significant contribution she has made.

We interviewed Fiona to find out more about her role and what’s been happening this year.

"I relish the opportunity to share information and learn from the activities of other Property Managers - every visit sparks a new idea"

Fiona Essam

Fiona, can you tell us what a ‘Community Champion’ is?

A Community Champion is an enthusiastic person with experience of working with the community who can inspire others to take action. In my role for Hermes, I act as an advisor and mentor to all the Property Managers.

I start off by getting to know the Property Managers, their properties and the area in which they operate. I then asses their current level of community engagement, suggest ideas as to how aspects of their work in the community can be improved and give them tips on how they might do this. Following on from this, I provide ongoing support to them over the course of the year, through sending them ideas, putting them in contact with potential partners, etc.

The RPI Awards, the RPI Forum and the RPI Centres of Excellence form part of the wider programme for driving improvement in the RPI Programme. This year’s RPI Forum centred on community engagement and was a really inspirational event.

It is also nice to be the person who offers congratulations – many PM’s don’t realise that they are actually doing active work in the community until I come along – they just see it as something that they do!

I relish the opportunity to share information and learn from the activities of the various Property Managers – every visit sparks a new idea.

Any highlights of your first year in the job?
One good example is Clarks Village. Having recommended that Clarks Village become involved with their local Education Business Partners I was really pleased to see that this partnership had flourished and the “Professional Development Retail Industry Day for Teachers of Work Related Learning and Enterprise, Business Studies, Careers Teachers and Advisers” proved to be a real success.

Louise Evans, the centre manager at Clarke Village was really excited about the project which was designed to change the perceptions of retail work in Somerset and promote and raise the profile of the significant employment and career opportunities that exist at all levels within retailing.

The outcomes of the day were better informed teachers and advisors, able to better inform the career choices of their students. The business benefits are:

• Positive contribution to the local community
• Improved recruitment and retention within the centre
• Cost effective staff development
• Improved links with local education providers
• Access to potential future employees
• Promotion of Clarks Village

What are your plans for the future?
We aim to launch a Community Engagement Programme (CEP) across the entire portfolio, which will provide greater focus to this area of RPI and make it easier for PM’s to engage and contribute. We will be consulting on our proposals over the coming months, but what I can say at this stage is that the initiative will be underpinned by the following objectives:

• Skills: Work to maximise employment opportunities and to enhance the skills and educational attainment levels of the local community.
• Wellbeing: Contribute to the wellbeing of the local community through promoting health and fitness
• Safety: Seek to promote and enhance safe and secure local environments.
• Culture: Seek to enhance the vitality and cultural fabric of the local area.
  I’m really looking forward to seeing further progress in the year ahead.