Inside Albyn: Head of Performance & Projects
Thanks for taking the time to read Inside Albyn, where we invite you to step into the diverse world of Albyn Housing Society. Today we are introducing Chris Ellis, our Head of Performance & Projects and providing insight into this important role within the organisation.
What are the primary responsibilities and tasks of this role?
In simple terms, my role is all about making sure we’re delivering the best possible services for our customers and always looking for ways to improve. I look after the Business Services teams, which encompasses complaints, customer participation, customer feedback, regulatory performance and project delivery.
I spend a lot of time looking at how we’re performing as an organisation, understanding what the data is telling us, and then working with my team and teams across the business to turn that into real improvements, whether that’s improving our housing management system Civica Cx, or identifying trends in why our customer experience, through their feedback, is maybe not working as well as it could, and learning the lessons from this to make improvements to the way we work
A big part of the job is joining the dots – linking together insight, customer feedback, and frontline experience to make sure we’re focusing on what really matters.
What does a typical day look like?
Honestly, there’s no such thing as a “typical” day!
Most mornings start with a coffee (getting older so it’s more a necessity these days) and a quick check of performance data, emails, and anything that might need urgent attention.
From there, my day could include:
- Catching up with colleagues to talk through performance and what’s going well (or not so well!)
- Working on projects, this might be shaping ideas, solving problems, or unblocking issues
- Looking at customer feedback and data to spot trends or opportunities to improve
- Preparing updates or reports for the leadership team
- Having conversations across the organisation to make sure we’re all pulling in the same direction
It’s a real mix of thinking time, collaboration, and problem-solving, which keeps things interesting.
Are there any unique challenges or exciting aspects to this role?
One of the biggest challenges is juggling the short-term and the long-term. There’s always something that needs attention right now, but you also need to keep an eye on where we’re heading as an organisation. But that’s also what I enjoy most. The role gives you a chance to step back, see the bigger picture, and influence how things improve over time. I also love the variety; you can go from deep diving into performance data one minute to having really practical conversations about how we make things easier for customers the next.
How does this role contribute to the mission and values of our organization?
For me, this role is all about making sure our vision and values actually show up in what we do every day, not just on paper.
A big part of my job is helping the organisation focus on building and maintaining quality homes while also improving the overall experience for our customers. Whether it’s through performance insights or leading projects, I’m always thinking about how we can make services simpler, better, and more responsive.
It also really connects to our values:
- Being caring – by using customer feedback and insight to understand what people really need and making sure their voices shape decisions
- Being adaptable – through driving change and improvement, especially with things like digital transformation and new ways of working
- Being professional – by making sure we’ve got the right data, processes, and accountability in place to deliver high-quality services consistently
It also plays a part in supporting our people to work in a more connected and effective way, and ensuring we’re making the best use of our resources so we can keep investing back into homes and services.
Ultimately, it’s about helping create the conditions where people and communities can flourish, and our staff have the tools to ensure we’re delivering on what matters most to our customers.
Can you share a specific success story or memorable experience from someone in this role?
One example that really stands out is the work we’ve done to improve our complaints process.
We were seeing from both our performance data and customer feedback that the experience wasn’t always as clear or as responsive as it should be. Complaints are such an important moment for customers, it’s when we have the opportunity to really listen and put things right, so we knew we had to improve it.
We took a step back and looked at the whole process end-to-end. That meant working with colleagues across different teams, reviewing the data, and really understanding the customer journey, where things were getting stuck, where communication could be better, and how we could make it simpler.
From there, we made a series of changes, streamlining the process, improving how we communicate with customers, and putting more focus on learning from complaints rather than just resolving them.
The impact has been really positive. We’ve seen improvements in response times and, more importantly, better feedback from customers who feel listened to and kept informed.
For me, that’s what success looks like in this role, not just fixing an issue, but using insight to make lasting improvements that build trust and improve the overall customer experience.