ELHA reaches paper-free target one year early

East Lothian Housing Association (ELHA) set a five-year target in 2017 of 80% of tenants using their digital My Home accounts and 80% of tenants going paper free.  Both targets have now been hit, a year early, with 83% of tenants now using their My Home accounts and 81% of tenants paper-free.

ELHA Chief Executive Martin Pollhammer said: “Four years ago, we had a rather paltry but still sector-leading 4% of tenants paper-free. Most people were sceptical that we would increase that figure by much, and even I thought our targets were perhaps unachievable, but it’s always good to think the impossible sometimes. To hit these targets a year early is fantastic, and, of course, we have celebrated by immediately setting a new long-term target of 90% for both figures, to make sure we still have some apparently unachievable targets to aim for.”

“The pandemic has shown us how important digital communication is, and with over 80% of our tenants now getting our e-news because they are paper-free, and our statistics showing over two-thirds of them read it within an hour of us sending it, that means over half of all our tenants read our e-news almost as soon as we send it. 

"We still do a printed newsletter for the minority of tenants who still use that format, but, of course, that is a rather slower process, and we don’t get any statistics about which articles were more popular or how often they are read.

“The shift to paper-free is transforming the way we communicate with our tenants – we now design web content first and foremost, and printed materials follow on, not the other way round. We have a new name for our paper-free tenants – we call them ‘tenants’, because being paper-free is normal for the vast majority of our tenants. 

"We, of course, ensure all our remaining 'printed tenants' get the information they need in the format they need it, and our approach to web content design and development ensures this remains a relatively quick and simple process for us. But it is becoming very much the exception to send anything in the post – paper-free means exactly that – it is an important principle that our tenants do not get anything at all from us through their letterbox if that is the communication method they choose.”