Broadland District Council – flexible working
| Company name | Broadland District Council |
|---|---|
| Sector | Local government |
| Number of employees | Approximately 280 |
| Type of workforce | Public servants |
What issue was the organisation facing?
At Broadland District Council, there is a corporate recognition that the organisation’s services to customers are only as good and effective as the people delivering them. While there has always been an open culture and a strong customer focus, there was also room for improvement between services. This meant that customer service was not as good as it could be.
Broadland has operated a system of performance-related pay since 1990. But when people approach the top of their pay band it’s more difficult to use this as an incentive. The council realised that they needed to investigate other motivational tools.
Another cause for concern was the lack of support people felt from their team members.
What action did the organisation take?
Broadland have now made special recognition of the value people place on their time and have introduced a flexible working policy (developed in conjunction with staff and unions) that has made a lot of difference to motivation in the organisation.
Some of the options staff can choose to take up include:
- a range of working patterns, such as part time, job-share, compressed hours, annualised hours and term-time working
- there are no core working times but staff cannot enter the council building before 7.45 am and must leave by 6.30 pm
- opportunities to do different things during lunch times, such as a walking club, a weekly ’stress-busting‘ massage, and lunchtime street dancing classes
- a range of social and fundraising activities.
To start to combat the lack of support employees felt from their team members, the council examined practices in the customer service team. They looked at how staff interacted with each other and how helpful they were, how they passed on enquiries, and how aware they were of other teams/people in the organisation. It transpired that often people thought they were being helpful to colleagues, but sometimes ended up frustrating and annoying others because of a lack of understanding and misconception about how they worked.
As a response to this, Broadland implemented a system of short-term placements for information service staff in other areas of the organisation. Rather than fill a short-term vacancy with a temporary member of staff, they decided to offer the opportunity to someone in the customer service team. An information officer worked for a number of weeks in the environmental health department. It worked so well that they have now expanded the scheme to other areas including housing and planning.
What has been the impact of implementing health interventions?
A survey conducted six months after the introduction of the new flexible working policies showed that 70% of staff had already benefited from at least one of the new measures. The majority of those who hadn’t benefited, fully expected to in the coming months.