Winning Hearts and Minds

Scarborough Borough Council

Tim Readman

Scarborough Borough Council

Image of change

• ‘Transformation’ associated with cuts• ‘New ways of working’ scepticism• Staff morale impacted by austerity• Members ‘heard it all before’

Recognised this programme of change would falter without ‘buy in’ from councillors, management and critically, the workforce

Scarborough Borough Council

SWITCH programme is born

• Vibrant image – subtly puts IT at the centre

• Underpinned by ‘Making Life Simpler’ mantra – applicable for residents and staff alike

Scarborough Borough Council

Setting the right mood music

• Staff survey undertaken – 300 responses• Evidenced the amount of ‘dead’ time• Heaps of double-keying, double-handling• Lots of time spent on mundane duties• One member of staff spent entire working

week just looking for documents

Survey established appetite for ‘new’ working

Scarborough Borough Council

Communications culture

Built project website:-• Latest news• Team• Vision• Streams• Quick wins

Scarborough Borough Council

Mood music to the subliminal

• Wanted to share the ‘art of the possible’

• Articles about channel shift, mobile working, web development, internet usage, etc

• Affirmation SWITCH was in-step with other councils / public sector

Scarborough Borough Council

Communications channels

• Regular updates on the SWITCH website• One-to-one visits to Services / individuals• Attended team briefings• Frequent ‘Noticeboard’ emails to staff and

Members• Regular presentations to Directors’ Team and

Senior Unit Managers• Updates at Member Briefings

Scarborough Borough Council

Highly visible – highly vocal

SWITCH team determined not to work as an isolated unit ‘in the shade’• Staff brought into project room to help design

and test processes• Regular conversations with Services about the

information they needed• Conversations with Customer Services –

improved data collected, as a result

Scarborough Borough Council

CRM launch - helping staff

Issues included:-• Familiarity with Achieve Service• Confidence using a new product• Teething troubles – speed, integrations

SWITCH team ‘decamped’ to Customer First, put dedicated phone number and email address in place, fixed issues and grew confidence

Scarborough Borough Council

Launch of DASH

• Huge culture shock to some members of staff – fear of change and working differently

• Some staff less IT confident than others• Managing expectations – speed of change

presented some challenges

SWITCH team worked with Services to refine processes and tackle issues face-to-face; no hiding when things weren’t quite right

Scarborough Borough Council

The penny has dropped …

• A year of change at lightning speed has given way to progress at a more measured pace – without losing any ambition or drive

• Customer Services staff are happy• More and more staff are seeing benefits and

‘art of the possible’ through DASH• SWITCH team is now being pushed by Services

themselves – hugely positive• Background noise is more harmonious