Stafford and Rural Homes

January 31, 2007

Stafford and Rural Homes hosted nationally renowned occupational psychologist and management thinker, John Seddon, who informed and entertained delegates on the subject “A Better Way to Make Work Work”.

John is credited with translating the Toyota Production System into systems for service organisations, where change can be much faster than in manufacturing. John has been a leading critic of management “fads”. Most of his criticisms are based on his view that it is management thinking that needs to change. John has been an ardent critic of the approach to public sector reform, in particular the adverse consequences of targets and specifications.

Stafford and Rural Homes is a new and vibrant, forward thinking company that owns and manages 5,600 homes within Stafford Borough. With ambitious plans to deliver an improvement programme for its homes of over £60M by 2010, it has begun a customer-focused drive towards true excellence in service delivery, by examining and changing the way it operates.

Karen Armitage, Chief Executive of Stafford and Rural Homes, said

“This was an opportunity for our partners and us to hear from one of the leading thinkers in achieving real cultural change in organisations like ours, helping us to put our customers first and make real progress towards delivering our promises to them"