Caryn’s cleaning up with ŌCHT’s digital coaching service
Caryn's cleaning up with help from digital coach Cam.
The irrepressibly energetic ŌCHT tenant is learning more about a suite of digital tools that can help her sole-trade business, Higenix.
Caryn's a vastly experienced contract cleaner who's looking to expand her business after more-than trebling her turnover in less-than four years.
That startling growth reflects her ethic and energy - and it's outpaced the business management capacity of mere pen and paper.
In sessions delivered when she's finished work, ŌCHT digital coach Cam has helped Caryn navigate digital banking, spreadsheets, and expense tracking tools.
Caryn says finding and understanding more of what the digital world offers has expanded her horizons - and her ambition.
"For a long time, I didn't think there was any to learn how to work a computer - what's a computer got to do with cleaning?
"But now with what Cam is teaching me I can see how it can help me manage my business, to help it grow.
“I have a low tolerance of frustration, so there's no way I could do this on my own. Cam's so clear, knowledgeable and understanding.
"He has a beautiful manner, it's so easy to learn from him.”
ŌCHT’s digital coaching service is free for ŌCHT’s community housing tenants
If Cam's her business's digital consultant, Caryn’s digital knowledge centre is the laptop she bought with help from ŌCHT. ŌCHT helps older tenants get low-cost Chromebooks and tablets via the Manchester Unity Welfare Trust’s devices for 65+ programme.
The laptop and Cam's service are an important part of the tenancy support Caryn says she's grateful for.
“The thing about living here, is it's not somewhere you just get left and forgotten about. The support is there, and it's amazing.”
Caryn says ŌCHT's support first came in the form of a stable home. She'd been a cleaning department manager and then a cleaning business owner, before a series of setbacks forced a late-stage rebuild.
Years ignoring a dodgy hip meant crippling pain and months out of work. She had to start from scratch after a hip operation.
Caryn was offered an ŌCHT-managed home and a new chance to get back to where she wanted to be, she says.
“Moving here, it meant I could turn my life around, it really did,” she says of her carefully personalised home.
She got work as a curtain installer for a business working on the joint ŌCHT warm and dry programme.
From there, she worked in cleaning at Lyttelton Port and for one of the city's biggest cleaning and hygiene companies.
She was finally able to move back into business with a move to a large industrial firm where she swapped a wage for contract.
Her business has grown as her client has, and now she's confidently planning her new future from her home base.
“I've got a huge ambition to grow,” she says with a wide smile.
“There are so many possibilities, getting staff, more clients, moving to a franchise.
"It's very exciting. And from my office right here, I'm determined to make it happen.”
