What will we learn?

This workshop will boost participants’ knowledge and confidence when negotiating with customers, external agencies and colleagues, covering the following areas:

• Initiating and managing positive conversations
• Encouraging a positive payment culture with empathy
• Handling objections assertively and engaging customers in finding solutions
• Negotiating realistic payment plans and motivating positive payment behaviours
• Supporting customers to pay on time and manage their accounts successfully.

For more experienced officers, the workshop is a chance to reflect on practice and share their skills and knowledge with colleagues.

How will we benefit?

At the end of the workshop, participants will be able to:

• Apply a motivational, solution-focused negotiation framework
• Understand their preferred negotiating style and how each style influences outcomes
• Prepare effectively for discussions about debt and arrears
• Build confidence in starting conversations about debt
• Apply practical frameworks and core skills to handle calls effectively and efficiently
• Handle payment objections empathetically while maintaining clear boundaries
• Guide customers through sensitive and challenging discussions
• Combine firmness with compassion so tenants feel supported, listened to and not judged.

Quite simply, applying these skills in practice will help improve customer engagement, strengthen collection outcomes, reduce avoidable escalation, and minimise the need for resource-heavy court proceedings and enforcement action.

How is the course delivered?

This workshop is delivered online using Zoom or MS Teams, over two half-days.

The timings for each day are as follows:

10:00 am to 13:00 (break 11:20 am to 11:40 am)

Delegates must attend both days to benefit fully from the workshop.

As this is a highly participative workshop, places are limited to a maximum of 16 participants.

What do we need to do as participants?

This training is delivered in a relaxed and engaging style.

To make the course a success, we ask participants to:

• Read the pre-course information
• Join the course with an open mind
• Be prepared to take part in the exercises
• Connect by 9:45 each day so that we can address any connection issues
• Enable your video, as this maximises participation and interaction.

What support do we get?

A full resource pack, including further learning materials, will be provided after the training.

Afterwards, a Q&A session is offered to support implementation of the learning.

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Bob Heaney, Social Housing Income Specialist and Trainer

Bob Heaney is an experienced housing professional, business trainer, and energy consultant, with a specialist focus on income recovery, rent collection, and tenant engagement in complex cases.

With over a decade of frontline experience, Bob has worked directly with tenants facing high-level arrears, non-engagement, and financial crisis – supporting sustainable payment plans while also managing litigation and enforcement where necessary. His approach is rooted in the belief that well-supported tenants, clear communication, and practical negotiation lead to better outcomes for both landlords and residents.

Bob grew up in social housing in Glasgow’s East End, and combines lived experience with professional insight drawn from years of housing practice, behavioural training, and business consultancy. This gives him a rare ability to connect with housing teams and tenants alike, translating complex challenges into workable strategies.

His training style is straight-talking, motivational, and grounded in reality. Drawing on principles from behavioural science, negotiation frameworks, and motivational interviewing, Bob helps income teams improve performance under pressure – whether managing current tenancies, recovering historic arrears, reducing evictions, or navigating welfare reforms as well as undertaking court action and evictions.

Bob has supported housing providers through the uncertainty of the pandemic and the shifting landscape of legislation, helping teams stay focused on what works. He has delivered workshops for local authorities, housing associations, and private sector organisations, equipping staff to have more positive conversations about rent, manage arrears assertively and empathetically, and reduce the need for court action.

He is a member of the Chartered Institute of Housing and believes passionately in delivering social housing services with a business brain and a social heart.

If you are unable to attend an event or public training course, please let us know in writing (email is fine) at least 48 hours before. Please email [email protected] Otherwise, a cancellation fee of £60 plus VAT will be chargeable. If you are using a package place to attend and do not inform us within the agreed time frame, then a place will be taken to cover your non-attendance. Cancellations must be made in writing, and will be acknowledged by HQN Limited.