Vico Homes

The situation

Vico Homes, formerly Wakefield District Housing, manages more than 32,000 homes across the north of England. The organisation serves some of the most vulnerable people in communities: families in housing need, older people, people with disabilities. The work of managing that portfolio and supporting those communities happens in offices. Teams coordinate maintenance, handle tenancy issues, plan service improvements, engage with residents.

The Corporate Building Plan for 2018 to 2025 aimed to rationalise the office portfolio. Buildings that had become inefficient or obsolete would close. Remaining offices would be modernised. But modernisation had to serve a purpose. Vico needed offices that supported collaborative work, that allowed teams to work flexibly, and that reflected the values of the organisation.

Gary Lindley, Head of Workplace and Commercial Property, was tasked with rethinking office use. The starting point was recognising that offices couldn’t just be places where people came to sit at desks. They needed to be spaces that facilitated collaboration, enabled hybrid working and projected what the organisation stood for.

What SCC did

SCC’s Visavvi division was engaged to equip meeting rooms with modern audio-visual technology. The starting point was understanding how Vico’s teams used space. Housing and social care organisations often work with external partners: councils, health services, community groups. Meetings frequently involve people not in the office. The meeting room technology needed to support that reality.

Visavvi designed systems that made remote participation feel natural, not tacked on. A team in one meeting room should be able to meet with residents, council partners or health service colleagues joining remotely. The technology needed to make those conversations flow without constant “can you hear me?” awkwardness.

Installation included displays, cameras and audio systems chosen for the specific use cases of a housing and social care organisation. Some meeting rooms needed to feel professional for tenant relations sessions. Others needed to support staff meetings and planning. The common element was that any hybrid meeting would work well.

What changed

Vico staff could now work flexibly without sacrificing collaboration. An employee could work from home most days but still participate fully in in-person meetings when they happened. The organisation could bring in external partners, council officials, health service leaders, community representatives, without them needing to be physically present. The technology made hybrid work feel normal rather than like a compromise.

The office portfolio rationalisation became possible because the remaining offices could work harder. With good meeting technology, fewer office locations could serve more people. The buildings Vico kept became models of modern workplace design.

What the client learned

Gary Lindley reflected: “It has been great to work with Visavvi – an SCC company – to transform our use of technology in our offices.” Vico learned that office modernisation is about enabling how work actually happens, not about installing impressive equipment. The learning extended to staff experience. By providing modern collaborative tools, the organisation signalled that it was investing in how people worked, not only where they worked. That investment mattered to teams who had been asked to adapt to office changes.