Collecting diverse staff feedback across dispersed locations
The challenge
The Highland Council wanted to get staff input into how to make the organisation more commercial and more efficient. But, with many staff working remotely, it was difficult to make effective use of face-to-face engagement.
As Highland is one of the geographically-largest local authorities in Europe, many of their employees work remotely. Some staff can go a long time without physically checking back in at head office. This meant that certain previous efforts – such as a physical suggestion box in head office – were of limited use, as not everyone could easily participate.
The approach
The Council had been looking for an opportunity and appropriate methodology or tool to effectively open up discussions amongst colleagues. They saw Dialogue recommended in a Democratic Society report for the Scottish Government and recognised that it was well-suited to their purposes.
They opened up a couple of challenges – one on becoming more commercial and one on efficiency – and, in less than a month, quickly racked up more than 200 ideas, 300 comments and 1,000 ratings.
The results
The Highland Council opted to make their challenges publicly visible – because they wanted to provide transparency on the conversation as it unfolded. They also chose to use a post-moderated approach to ensure that ideas could naturally flow.
As the challenges wrapped up, community managers at the Council reviewed all the ideas and began to identify the best candidates to take through to implementation. Some suggestions were quickly moved forward: for example, the removal of superfluous paper towels – a straightforward, practical measure, saving the Council money instantly.
We needed to speak to as many staff as possible due to the budget challenges the Council faced. To do this we needed a dynamic forum. Dialogue enabled people to quickly and easily share and discuss their ideas whether they were in HQ or 100 miles away, and at a time that suited them. We let the conversation flow and the result was hundreds of fantastic ideas and opinions.
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