Housing Associations play an invaluable role in providing quality homes and creating communities. That’s why we’re proud of how many have chosen Convene to help fulfil their social purpose of housing people.
Here at Convene, we have over 100 clients in the Housing Sector. We’ve talked to our clients about why they chose Convene, and noted a few of the most common reasons:
Convene Streamlines Preparation
Given rising operational costs, it makes sense Housing Associations want to cut down the resources spent on meeting preparation. Convene saves administrators valuable time and energy, so they can focus on the important things.
As Julia Wiles at Housemark observed: ‘Before Convene it was very time-consuming and labour-intensive to prepare meeting packs. There were lots of Board papers that had to be collated into one single PDF document.’
With Convene, Housing Associations can organise the Agenda and Board Pack with a simple drag-and drop. Once you have created your meeting template once you can re-use it as many times as you need for future meetings.
The benefits of this system were noted by Paul Phillis Kirk at Your Housing Group: ‘Convene has significantly reduced the time and resources required to create meeting reports and board packs. In Convene, all you have to do is import all the relevant documents and updates, and the app collates them for you!’
Convene Meets High Security Standards
When it comes to security standards, Housing Associations need to stay ahead of evolving cybersecurity threats.
Speaking on their security requirements, Rachel Wickenden, Head of Executive Support at Newlon Housing Trust noted ‘We needed the assurance of a secure system due to our strict rules and regulations. Convene is great because it ensures that the right data is visible to the right people.’
With AES 256-bit encryption and CMMI Level 5 accreditation, Convene allows Housing Associations to rest assured that their data is secure. The fully GDPR-compliant system offers 24/7 protection and support, as well as granular access controls.
Housing Associations can also benefit from the Document Library which enhances administrative security and reduces soft data leaks. On this feature, Julia Wiles of Housemark said ‘If any documents are sent out between meetings, or if anyone leaves the organisation, then documents are safely stored in Convene’s Document Library.’
Convene’s Features Improve Collaboration
Convene comes with a comprehensive suite of features that allow Housing Associations to make the most of their meeting time. One of these is the live annotations function, so directors can share notes before the meeting.
This feature was picked up on by David Wingham at Coastline Housing Association ‘You can make notes on documents and share your notes with others on the team. I can sit at my desk or at home and add a comment, and my colleagues will see it when they next log in. It’s a really efficient way of working.’
Convene’s Accessible Interface Enhances Functionality
Housing Associations require a solution that is simple and intuitive. Many of our customers have noted that Convene is easy-to-use – even for the most technophobic members of the team!
Speaking of the implementation at Clarion Housing Group, Senior Governance Manager, Scott Hyde, observed that ‘Normally, I’ve needed to provide the support for the implementation of any new systems, often needing to sit at desks and give granular instructions to users, it’s something I’ve done for years! However, with Convene, this is not necessary as it is such an intuitive system.’
How Can Convene Support Your Housing Association?
Convene is an award-winning Board Portal designed to digitise and streamline your meeting processes from start-to-finish. Our comprehensive features include:
- A Document Library with role-based access to ensure your sensitive documents are protected.
- A built-in Audit Trail, so you can be sure you are compliant with all regulations.
- Integrated Video Conferencing, so you can make the switch from remote to hybrid working seamlessly, whilst still viewing your Board Pack all on one screen.
- Surveys, with the option for anonymity, so you can be sure you are aware of your employees’ opinions.
- Accessibility Features, including text-to-voice, which makes us the leading accessible Board Portal.
The software now also comes as an integration with Microsoft Teams, which provides the benefits of both Teams and a Board Portal.
If you’d like to learn more about how Convene can help your organisation achieve better governance, please do not hesitate to book a free demo today!
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