Why post-occupancy evaluation is good for us all

Our Director, Matthew Morgan, explores the key findings from our recent review of post-occupancy evaluation in housing. He explains the opportunities such evaluation offers for creating inclusive, equitable and sustainable communities

Product development is the life-blood of companies and societies. Cars, smartphones and aeroplanes all go through a constant process of scrutiny and evaluation to create better products for consumers, to provide wider benefits to society and to ensure a competitive edge.

In most companies, the customer is at the heart of that process. Extensive research is carried out from stress-testing an initial concept to assessing how a product is received and used.

Not so in housing.

In housing, despite its huge financial commitment and its place as a key determinant of health and wellbeing for both individuals and society as a whole, companies rarely find out what their customers think of their products. 

This can result in reduced resident satisfaction; missed opportunities for innovation; the creation of homes and neighbourhoods that do not address the needs of residents and communities; and significant sustainability challenges, missing out on environmental improvements that would benefit us all. 

Housing post-occupancy evaluations, or POEs, seek to change that process.

POEs – like our own Resident Review service – evaluate the performance of a home and/or neighbourhood after it has been occupied to ensure it is meeting the needs of its occupants. They also identify areas for improvement and provide learning that informs better decisions in the future.

Our new report for the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities reviews housing post-occupancy evaluation in the UK today. It points to a series of recommendations that will be better not only for residents and wider societies, but key to ensuring a competitive advantage in the future:

  1. There needs to be a mindset shift in industry, and within local and national governments, about the purpose and use of POEs. An evaluation process that runs from pre-planning to post-occupancy must be contractually written into projects and programmes from the beginning. POE has the potential to provide multiple benefits as its learnings are shared over time; from improving building performance to raising outcomes for people’s health and wellbeing; from increasing biodiversity net gain to the creation of more social infrastructure
  2. The measurement of POE should harness proxy values that can be followed through the development lifecycle, from investment to post-occupancy. These proxy values can help pave the way for social value to be mapped from land acquisition onwards; moving beyond the current model of social value that focuses on procurement and construction, but not the success or otherwise of finished schemes. 
  3. Those agencies with a responsibility to the nation and their communities for the long-term social and environmental sustainability need to ensure that POE is used as a way of ensuring accountability in the developments they support. At the least, we would recommend appropriate dissemination and include a process to measure impact in briefing documents.
  4. The costs of POE need to be factored in at the beginning of a project, and an evaluation process scoped and costed within contracts, rather than being seen as a bolt-on at the end. This will help incentivise and support the use of POE throughout the project process even after the handover stage. 
  5. There is no point in collecting data if it is not used, so the purpose of a POE must extend further than that of data collection. It should act to support better decision-making through the design and development processes for housing, including budgeting, design, construction and operation. We recommend that evaluations should be taken at various points within a project lifecycle including after handover to improve the design quality and continue learning. 

The significance of housing on our lives cannot be overstated. It influences our wealth, health, wellbeing and overall quality of life. But the housing industry has been slow to prioritise customer feedback and incorporate it into the development process. Profit maximisation tends to be a bigger driver of how a product is produced and sold, and innovation or development is often the result of government regulation, which is in turn seen as burdensome and overbearing.

POEs challenge this status quo by putting occupants’ experiences and satisfaction at the forefront, and we believe the potential to improve the industry is huge. 

At an individual level, it ensures that homes are tailored to meet the specific needs and preferences of residents. But a positive customer experience in housing can create broader societal impact, as the quality of housing directly affects the overall fabric of society. 

By actively involving residents, identifying areas for improvement and fostering collaboration among stakeholders, POEs have the power to revolutionise the way homes and neighbourhoods are designed, built and experienced. 

By prioritising the needs and satisfaction of residents, housing developments can embody customer-centric design, leading to more inclusive, equitable and sustainable communities for the benefit of individuals and society as a whole.