Agenda item

5:55pm

The Leader and Communications and Marketing Manager attended to provide Members with a progress update on the delivery of the Council’s Internal and External Communications Strategies. A summary of results from the recent employee survey was provided highlighting areas that had improved or worsened. The new intranet, Aspire, had contributed to an improvement in employees feeling informed, however satisfaction levels about communications between team leaders and managers and their staff, and the frequency of one-to-ones had decreased.

The draft survey results had been discussed with Cabinet Members, Service Managers and at Corporate Management Team meetings. Further analysis would take place within the Workforce Strategy group and would involve focus groups of staff from different levels within the Council. A particular emphasis would be placed on the role of line managers in improving the frequency and quality of team meetings, individual appraisals and one-to-one meetings.

The update on the External Communications strategy included news of the launch of the Council’s new website. The main change to the website was that it now had a ‘responsive design,’ allowing it to be read easily on tablets and smartphones. The next phase of the work on the website was underway and the analysis on analytics has been completed. Customer data, i.e. contact centre enquiries, would be looked at to see how the website could be used to provide answers and improve navigation for users.

The Leader commented that it had been a long process moving from a semi-professional to a fully professional communications team. Cabinet Members had received media training so that the Leader could step back from doing the majority of media interviews. There had also been a change in the way the Leader and Chief Executive communicate with the workforce which included holding four recent workforce meetings. The meetings involved larger groups of employees from a mixture of Council service areas to give employees the confidence to ask challenging questions.

Members noted that, compared to other organisations, the employee survey results were mostly positive. Members also gave support for the press releases by the Council as they found them useful when dealing with constituents.

Members raised concerns over the decreasing number of employees who said that communication within their service area was good. The Communications and Marketing Manager replied that, within the last few weeks, many staff that previously had no access to emails had been issued with mobile devices to improve communications. In addition, Aspire had only recently been launched at the time of the survey and was expected to improve access to information and communications.

The Communications and Marketing Manager added that the worst area identified by the survey related to team managers. To help address the problem, meetings had been held at Service Manager level and with Cabinet Members. In addition, the Senior Leadership Team had stressed that they would be taking a firmer approach to team managers and their communications with their staff as the current levels of dissatisfaction were not acceptable. Members were concerned with the low frequency of team meetings and asked if managers were prepared for holding team meetings. The Communications and Marketing Manager advised that, as the survey is anonymous, it was difficult to identify which teams were affected; however holding team meetings was in the team manager’s job description so they should be prepared to arrange them.

Members asked if the Council was concerned over the falling number of employees who said that they were proud to tell others that they worked for the Council. The Leader and the Communications and Marketing Manager advised that the overall trend was good compared to other organisations.

Members asked if the response rate to the survey had increased. The Communications and Marketing Manager replied that the response rate had fallen from 59 per cent to 43 per cent. There had been issues accessing the survey due to server problems which led to some employees giving up before submitting the survey, though extra paper copies were produced to help address this. In addition, one service area had boycotted the survey and the data from two service areas was so low it could not be relied upon.

The Chair commented that the indicators overall were encouraging and praised the proactive approach taken to address the areas of concern that had been raised. The Chair also commended the external website and Aspire, in particular their ability to be accessed on mobile devices. The Chair thanked the Leader and Communications and Marketing Manager for attending.

RESOLVED –

1)   That the progress report be noted.

2)   That the Chairs’ comments be noted.