Client Brief
After a re-organisation that brought together 140 disparate professional, technical and manual staff, the Head of Operations, wanted to “breathe life” into the group which includes refuse collection, street cleaning, building and maintenance, dog wardens, car park attendants and other front line services. A key driver was the need to eradicate duplication of staff and effort - created from client contractor arrangements and departmental ‘silo’ mentality. We designed a development event to “kick start” the new Operations Service Group and get everyone involved in the running of the business.

Diagnosis, Design and Delivery
This intervention was a big challenge to the culture of the different professional and manual groupings. Stage 1 of the diagnosis involved a confidence building exercise where about half of the total staff were involved in small group design discussions. Single status thinking, under-pinned by the development workshop was worked on.

Features of the design included:
Two-day residential workshop
Co-facilitation with members of the senior management team
Sensitivity to low literacy skills of some attendees
Group assessment against the Business Excellence Model framework
Introduction to team dynamics through the Belbin Team Role software
Creation of group “action plans for involvement”

Success Criteria and Evaluation
No new metrics were needed in order to evaluate effectiveness. Regular staff surveys and the outcomes from staff appraisals were chosen as key evaluation criteria indicating behaviour change. In terms of results, tracking of existing metrics show;
92% satisfaction for refuse collection
97% satisfaction for responsive repairs
12% increase in satisfaction with parks and public open spaces
Employees are now much more confident and assume greater ownership for the improvement of services.