A commitment to participation
The challenge
HM Courts & Tribunals Service (HMCTS) is committed to giving its employees different ways of expressing their views within their organisation. Employee voice is one of the key pillars of HMCTS' approach to employee engagement.
Previously, HMCTS had tried a 'Bright Ideas' scheme, where people could suggest ideas by filling out a form on an internal intranet page. However, there was a perception that ideas would often sit on the platform and not be actioned, falling into an organisational 'black hole' with no feedback given and little sense of transparency.
The approach
They were aware of the Ministry of Justice's Dialogue site, which had proven to be a huge success. HMCTS saw this success and through the outcomes of their working group and survey found that Dialogue fitted all of their criteria for functionality.
Using Dialogue, they created a new site called 'Growing Ideas That Matter', using an acorn growing into a tree as the logo to represent the idea of conversations developing. Ideas can start small and be built upon by everyone involved until a workable and beneficial proposal is generated.
To ensure there is clear ownership, employees registering on Dialogue are asked to enter their name in a certain format. The underlying rule for suggestions is to make them count, make them matter, and to own them.
The results
New challenges are posted every four weeks and members of the Senior Leadership Team have been allocated as sponsors for them, commenting on ideas and ensuring the conversation is heard, and acted on where possible. With 450 locations across the country, this has proven to be a great virtual workshop for geographically dispersed colleagues to have meaningful discussions.
The success of using Dialogue has already led to some ideas being taken forward and organisational changes which may have gone otherwise unheard and is helping HMCTS employees to feel valued and able to have a genuine input in improving their place of work.
Dialogue has given HMCTS a platform to build our engagement and help take a broad spectrum of ideas and experience into account when delivering change. We feel like we've only just scratched the surface of what we could achieve with Dialogue and are excited to see where this leads.
Delib is a govtech leader specialising in consultation and engagement, trusted by over 600 government organisations worldwide, including major planning projects. Since 2004, we've been building secure, accessible digital platforms to make participation simpler, fairer, and more inclusive. Our flagship product, Citizen Space, was built in collaboration with the UK government and has supported more than 11 million responses across over 110,000 democratic activities.