Case Study: Strategic communications for Clarion Housing Group
In 2025, I was appointed by Clarion Housing Group, the UK’s largest housing association, to provide strategic communications support in four areas: Change, Corporate Affairs, Internal Communications and the development of the People Strategy 2026–30.
With regulatory expectations rising, customer demands changing, and internal transformation accelerating, Clarion sought to strengthen how the organisation engaged colleagues with strategic priorities. My role was to provide strategic counsel and delivery input that would build communications capability and embed more integrated ways of working across teams.
Engaging colleagues with change
Clarion’s organisation-wide transformation programme, Connect, was underway but its scale and iterative approach had created challenges for colleague engagement. Having completed a review of internal stakeholders, I developed a narrative framework that provided a clear ‘reason to believe’ and improved coordination of messaging from leadership and across internal channels.
Content was tailored to key colleague personas and activated through monthly newsletters and all-colleague Check-Ins. This newsroom approach shifted communications about change from broadcast to dialogue, increasing reach and gaining positive feedback from colleagues.
9,488 colleagues reached
70% average newsletter open rate
Monthly Check-In attendance averaged over 200
Innovation to accelerate Corporate Affairs
The Corporate Affairs team wanted to embed a strategic, forward-looking approach that would enable the team to be more innovative. I worked with the senior leadership team to improve planning and establish blueprints for integrated campaigning and evaluation. This included facilitating planning away days, delivering a 2026 innovation roadmap and developing proposals for an outcomes-focused evaluation dashboard.
For the Internal Communications team, I introduced practical planning tools and advised on the use of AI to build confidence in using Co-pilot to improve campaign planning, audience insight and content delivery. This helped position the team as a more visible strategic function and developed capability within the team.
A sector-leading employer: developing the People Strategy 2026–30
Clarion wanted to develop a new People Strategy that would continue the organisation’s journey to being the sector-leading employer while keeping ahead of workforce trends. I led the process from research through to Group Executive Team sign-off in 12 weeks.
The project included internal consultation, leadership workshops, external interviews and benchmarking across the housing and public sectors. The final strategy sets out an exciting vision for the future with a clear framework to inspire colleague engagement, development and culture, aligned to strategic priorities.
Why it mattered
My work for Clarion Housing combined strategy with hands-on delivery that achieved a step change in outcomes. It strengthened Clarion’s ability to engage at scale, supported leadership and positioned communications as a driver of delivery, not just a support function. Above all, it was a terrific opportunity to be part of a sector-leading organisation – thank you to all the team involved.
“Natalie brought strategic thinking and structure to complex work across multiple teams. Her counsel helped us plan more effectively, make better use of insight and apply innovation in ways that will deliver long-term value. I was delighted to have her as part of our team.”
Catherine Thomas, Chief Corporate Affairs Officer, Clarion Housing Group
