Aberdeenshire Council's Workstyle Transformation Programme has been renamed as Worksmart. This integrated programme seeks to ensure that council staff find the best ways of working to provide the best service to their customers, giving them "all the chance to spend less time travelling to and from places and more time to do the things that matter, like delivering quality services and reducing the additional hours we work," according to the Council.
16,000 wage slips have had an insertion created for the August run inviting every single council employee to fill out a short questionnaire and in return get entered into a prize draw to win one of ten 8GB iphones, donated to the council for this purpose by O2 and Apple.
This insertion has meant that, for less than £300, the Worksmart Project Team has been able to communicate to all Council staff, which is essential for those who do not have access to a PC for their working role.
In addition to the pay slip insert, council staff will have seen articles in the SQ (Shire Quarterly) staff newspapers, within Core Brief (a tool for managers to communicate with their teams), on posters, and on Arcadia (the council intranet), all promoting the survey and prizes!
Over the last two days, nearly 9100 paper copies have been delivered to all staff that do not have an external email address, albeit there is the ability to complete the online version if they choose. The interactive nature of the web-based survey tool allows the Worksmart team to disseminate specific information to assist with the various strands which make up the basis of the business case.
Completed questionnaires, which can be returned online or via postage paid envelopes to a research company, must be in by September 7th and already, within five days, there has been a 26% response rate from council employees who received an electronic version of the survey!
As you can see, Aberdeenshire Council is changing - looking at new ways of working which will make them more efficient and able to provide better services for their customers.
To find out more about this initiative, and to share your own experiences, please join our mobile and flexible working in Scotland group. Feel free to have a look around the website http://www.communities.idea.gov.uk/c/1339395/home.do, view Mark Baker's blog (and add your own comments/questions!) http://www.communities.idea.gov.uk/c/1339395/blog/index.do?pageSize=7, and sign up to receive email alerts for new content.
