The Housing Executive’s Eileen Thompson, who worked in the Downpatrick branch last year, has been shortlisted for the ‘Rising Star’ award category at the Chartered Institute of Housing-NI’s annual awards.
Passionate about improving services to customers, Eileen began her career with the Housing Executive in 2008 as part of the graduate trainee programme. She has worked in a number of strategic areas within the Housing Executive and is currently employed in the Transformation Team.
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Eileen Thompson[/caption]
Eileen has gained valuable experience in social housing across a variety of areas. She has worked in a number of the Housing Executive’s local offices in a range of housing management roles contributing to their successful Customer Service Excellence assessments.
Eileen said: “At the heart of the Housing Executive’s work is the provision of good affordable homes in safe and healthy communities.
“When I worked in the Downpatrick office I was delighted to be able to witness first-hand the joy of someone moving into their new house and making it a home. The team is totally committed to delivering the best possible housing services to our tenants and customers and has built up good working relationships with partner organisations to be able to do so. “I have been very fortunate to benefit from many great opportunities since I joined the Housing Executive, and it is lovely to be nominated for the award, but in my experience the Housing Executive is full of ‘stars.”
Eileen has been involved with the introduction of important business initiatives, including text messaging services, new staff induction packs adopted across the Housing Executive’s Landlord Services and the evaluation of the Customer Service Unit’s effectiveness in making outbound arrears calls, highlighting best practice and making recommendations which led to a number of improvements being implemented.
In 2011 Eileen was awarded a fellowship from the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust completing the project ‘Housing an Ageing Population: lessons from North America’. This research led to two of her journal articles being published in the UK housing publication ‘Housing, Care and Support’.
Loma Wilson, who nominated her for this award, is delighted Eileen was shortlisted. She said: “Eileen is hard working, committed and knowledgeable about housing issues and passionate about improving services to customers. I believe she has all the qualities to succeed as a future leader in the social housing sector.”
Eileen has a BA (Hons) in European Studies from Trinity College Dublin, a Masters in History from Queen’s University Belfast and a Post Graduate Diploma in Housing Studies from the University of Ulster.
The CIH-NI Awards will take place at Belfast City Hall 27 February 2015.
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