Wickland Westcott

Contour Housing Group - Assessing Capability

Contour Housing is one of the largest registered social landlords in the North West, with over 20,000 properties under ownership and management across 27 local authorities, providing housing, leaseholder and regeneration and development services to neighbourhoods.

Following a company restructure and review of the top team, Wickland Westcott was engaged to carry out structured one-to-one assessments of four senior executives.
The first stage was to establish the extent of fit between each Executive's current role and their proposed role within the new structure. Where the role being applied for was similar to the executive's existing role, the assessment would be used to aid their ongoing development. However, where the role being applied for had a significantly different skill set, the assessment would be used to identify their fit into the new role.

The second stage was to conduct the one-to-one assessments. Each of these took place over a half day with a consultant from Wickland Westcott's Talent team. They involved a competency interview, a personality assessment interview (exploring personality questionnaire data), a psychometric managerial judgement test, and a self-reflection exercise designed to draw out participants' insights into their own strengths and development areas.

Following the assessments, comprehensive reports were produced by Wickland Westcott, summarising the main findings in relation to the key competencies. The development reports were shared directly with the participants themselves, and the selection reports were made available to the Chief Executive. All of the appointments were confirmed and further feedback has been offered to assist the executives in adapting to their new responsibilities.

Contour Housing valued the independent nature of the process. The Chief Executive, Mike Creamer, commented: "In working to a very tight timescale, we particularly appreciated the responsiveness, professionalism and adherence to our brief that Wickland Westcott and their consultants showed, helping us to achieve a smooth, sensitively handled transition between our operating structures".