Maximising impact; Hire new leaders in peak. Every September the same questions come up with customer leaders who experience a type of winter peak. Is the contact centre resourced. In 2026 the questions have moved on. Will the systems hold? Is the AI we put into the service layer going to help or hurt? Have we moved far enough since last peak to measure it? Peak has become a proof question. And most businesses are still hiring for it the wrong way round. The old assumption: Don't bring a senior leader in during peak. Too much noise, too late to feel the benefits. Let them start in the new year when it's calm and they'll be ready for next time. Recruit in the slow period, impact in the fast one. Sounds sensible... Yet it’s the option that easily means impact needs to wait 12 months. Measurable impact for senior leaders has shifted from 9 down to 6 months, and in some cases as little as 3 months (the benefits of fresh eyes and board backing!) so there's no longer a need for a 6 month pre-peak integration for leaders. The bigger risk is waiting 6 months for impact that can be felt in 3. A September decision: Brief the search now, gain clarity on what you need and commit to the hiring process, and you could see someone join ready to experience peak first hand and start building on impact immediately. Transformational leaders can be available on short notice and be in time to impact your business performance. One leader put it to me in an interesting way last week: the value is in being there while it's happening. The question for September: Who do you need in the customer function to be there, and actively transforming, through this peak and into the next? If you haven't hired them yet, decide now, while the pressure is visible and the learning is free. Waiting for calm moves the risk a year down the road.
People ask me how's the market. The question should be who's getting jobs.
The Competence and Conduct Standard comes into force in October 2026. Larger providers, those with 1,000 homes or more, have until October 2029 to comply, and smaller providers until 2030. Senior housing managers will need a Level 4 qualification, and directors and heads of service a Level 5 or a foundation degree. Most associations are treating this as a job for the training team. It is also a hiring one, and it changes who you can appoint and how you write the brief. The scope is where it bites The standard follows what a role does, not what it is called. Anyone spending more than half their time on housing management service delivery, or where that is a substantial part of the role, is in scope. The guidance is not prescriptive, so borderline director roles sit in a grey area. A customer director covering complaints, income and contact centre could be read either way, and two associations can look at the same job and reach different answers. Decide where your role sits before you advertise it, because it changes who can do the job. The people it falls hardest on Housing has always been a sector you could rise through on results. Plenty of today's strongest customer leaders started on a front line, in a call centre, an income team or a housing office, and climbed on the strength of what they delivered rather than what they studied. The standard asks something specific of that group. The entry requirements themselves are experience-based. The CIH Level 4 Certificate expects you to be working in housing at a supervisory or management level, with a Level 3 qualification or equivalent experience behind you. The Level 5 Diploma expects around two years at that level, or the Level 4 first. So there is no GCSE or A-level gate at the door, which matters. The ask sits in the study itself. These are degree-level qualifications assessed by written assignment, and for a leader who has run a function for fifteen years and not sat a formal assessment since school, that is a real and uneven demand. It tests a credential they can earn on top of a capability they have already proven. A leader who progressed through performance can feel penalised by a rule that rewards paperwork, and that is worth naming plainly rather than waving through. When you hire, factor in that the strongest candidate on the evidence may also be the one for whom the qualification is the biggest lift, and decide how you will back them through it.