Why join us

Why join the Housing Ombudsman Service

The people who work in the Service are unique – each with their special talents and experience to offer in support of the work that we do. We play to the strengths of our people and value the different strengths and talents of every employee.

Integral to the work that we do is ensuring that we live our values and collectively work towards our vision. Our values guide us in our everyday work and help us in building productive working relationships with colleagues, landlords, tenants and others. Find out more about our vision and values.

In addition to you bringing your enthusiasm, skills and experience to the organisation, we support and encourage employees to develop and achieve through on-going performance management. You’ll be asked to take ownership of your development though an individual personal development plan, which will help you to identify what ‘on the job’ training you need to help you achieve your full potential in your new role and advance your future career aspirations.

Rewarding career, rewarding benefits

Knowing you’ve played a central part in helping others to increase trust in dispute resolution and to improve landlord and tenant relations is both motivating and rewarding in itself.

Over and above knowing you’ve contributed to making a difference, you’ll be working within a supportive and inclusive working environment. Our range of benefits are designed to reflect this and include:

• Local Government Pension Scheme – Opportunity to join the Local Government Defined Benefit Pension Scheme.
• Healthy work/life balance  – We recognise and respect that our people have a life outside work and they value flexibility. In addition to a 35 hour working week, we offer we offer home working, hybrid working and office working.
• Generous annual leave – Minimum of 25 days holiday, rising after four years of continuous service plus eight statutory bank holidays and three, paid Christmas closure days.
• Commitment to health and wellbeing – Free onsite gym and shower facilities, cycle to work scheme, free yearly health check-up, employee assistance programme, access to CSSC Sports and Leisure website, discounts on days out, restaurants and high street shopping, contribution towards eye-tests and glasses.
• Season ticket loan – Interest free public transport ticket loan.
• Commitment to ongoing development – Payment of professional memberships fees and regular training workshops.
• Location – Within walking distance of Underground and DLR stations, waterside location near Canary Wharf Shopping Centre and various bars, cafes and restaurants.

Additional Information

Travel
Depending on the role you are applying for there may be occasional travel requirements to other parts of the country to enable the post holder to carry out their duties fully.  You will be advised of any such commitments as part of the recruitment and selection process.

Celebrating and promoting diversity
We are committed to providing equality of opportunity in our employment practices. We also accept and value individual difference.

The importance of this is reflected in our Equality & Diversity Policy and Dignity at Work Policy; our Disability Confident Committed accreditation; and is evident by our adoption of an anonymised recruitment process. 

We also monitor the effectiveness of these policies and the health of our working environment. This is achieved through a number of initiatives including: 

• active in-house ‘Diversity and Inclusion’ and ‘Health and Wellbeing’ Groups as staff forums to voice and champion change on behalf of our colleagues;
• the use of Equality & Diversity Monitoring; and
• running a regular “Healthy Place to Work” opinion survey. 

Probation
An appointment will be subject to a probationary period for 6 months. This time is planned to ensure that new employees settle properly into their jobs and that they are suited to the work and receive the appropriate level of support and guidance.

The 6 month period includes regular reviews with the new employee to discuss how the job is going and initial performance. Most probationary reviews are completed successfully.

Learning and development
We are committed to the learning and development of all staff to enable them to be the best that they can be. As a new member of staff you will undergo a detailed induction programme. We organise a number of in house training courses and encourage staff to attend relevant external training courses where appropriate.

The information contained here provides an indication of the main benefits associated with the position and working at the Housing Ombudsman Service. A full statement of the terms and conditions of employment will be supplied once an offer of employment is made.

Did you know…?

In our most recent employee engagement survey we scored

80%

Employee involvement and wellbeing is important to us and we run a bi-annual employee engagement survey so employees can give feedback and express their opinions on different aspects of the organisation. Our engagement scores continue to improve.