1. Focus groups and participants
During December 2013 and January 2014 a total of 13 employee engagement sessions were offered, with up to 250 available spaces. Overall 31 bookings were received and 26 staff attended. Most participants responded to the 220 individual invitations sent to a 10% representative sample generated, and 4 attendees volunteered through prompts from Project Board members.
In spite of the small numbers taking part, the make-up of the attendees was broadly representative of the workforce, with the exception of underrepresentation of Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic staff and part-time workers. The details of attendees against the non-Schools workforce is outlined below.
Category Overall workforce
profile (ex Schools)
Focus group profile Department Children, Schools &
Families 24.9% 19.2% Community & Housing 24.9% 19.2% Corporate Services 19.9% 23.1% Environment & Regeneration 30,4% 38.5%
Contract hours Full time 74% 96.2%
Part time 26% 3.9% Age Under 34 17.6% 26.9% 35-44 21.8% 11.5% Over 45 60.6% 61.5% Ethnicity BAME 24.1% 7.7% White 69.6% 84.6% Gender Female 58,6% 42,3% Male 41.4% 57,7%
Disability Reported disability 6.25% 15.5%
Length of service Under 3 years 21.5% 26.9% 3 to < 10 years 41,5% 42.3% Over 10 years 37.0% 30.8% 2. Key themes
Recognition and reward – financial e.g. fair job evaluation and well as non-financial, such as
appreciation for discretionary effort
Consistency of performance management, quality and consistency of feedback, addressing underperformance
Effective change management and extensive support for staff throughout the transformation process
Communication, especially consulting and listening to staff views and suggestions when shaping the way forward
Resources to support the workforce in delivering services, e.g. less bureaucratic processes,
robust policies and good systems, especially IT
3. Detailed employee views 3.1 The current state
The characteristics of Merton Council most valued by participants
Awards, external recognition and a good reputation, including being seen as outstanding in London was mentioned as the first point in each group.
As specific benefits for the workforce the flexible working arrangements stood out, alongside aspects that made staff feel valued, including good corporate communication, health care arrangements and good facilities.
A positive working environment was highlighted, including customer focus and a community spirit, a
good team, a friendly place to work and colleagues’ willingness to be supportive of each other.
The good transport links and ease of access were consistently mentioned. While this is outside the organisation’s control, it is potentially relevant as part of Merton’s positioning as employer of choice under the recruitment and retention strand.
What is it like getting things done in Merton?
Bureaucracy and slow processes was the key response to this question, mentioned in every group,
including slow decision making, too many processes and authorisation requirements. Some barriers are experienced, sometimes seen as being linked to an unwillingness to take risks and lack of devolved decision making.
The Council is also seen as insufficiently business-like with a lack of urgency or lack of clear priorities. Over reliance on external input, including consultants and temporary staff was highlighted.
The Internal customer is not always seen as important though some good examples were given.
Limitation of IT provision was a recurring theme, although there was some praise for new systems.
Some lack of IT skills and competence.
There is a perceived lack of an overarching vision. DMTs manage the transformations, and the TOM process is overly introverted, focussed on own service. There are lots of initiatives which are complementary, but no overall vision is given that can be understood by all staff at all levels – it is unclear what the Council stands for.
Vast majority of staff are excellent and work very hard. Own teams are reported as being great,
supportive - people are motivated, especially once they know about genuine reason or a deadline, seen as very helpful.
Many line managers are praised, but there is a perceived inconsistency on management expectations and underperformance is not challenged.
HR policies are quite challenging, seen as a lot of stages, too many steps to be taken by managers,
policies are not sufficiently up-to-date.
Information is in too many different places, on different systems, no comprehensive storage and
retrieval information.
Short-term thinking, processes and mechanisms (e.g. accounting) seen as not supportive of innovation.
3.2 The future state
Expectations for the future of the Council
More focus on shared and commissioned services, increased flexibility and joined up, cross-team working.
More business-like, customer-focussed with increased income generation, seeking appropriate revenue streams.
Fewer, but highly engaged, multi-skilled staff able to carry out different areas of work. Better performance management.
Increased investment in infrastructure
Efficient, move away from traditional view of what public services are, but providing value for money for the tax payer. Will need to take some significant decisions about the services the council actually provide statutory vs. those seen as ‘nice to have’.
What can we change for the better?
Reduce bureaucracy, including fewer meetings, shorter decision cycles, less complex authorisation
processes, changes to strategic planning processes. Joined-up working from CMT (across directorates).
Careful management of managers’ workloads: trust managers more to take decision, but awareness of the weight of the delegated tasks.
Improved communication to staff on both processes and local decisions (central communication is
already seen as good). Especially more openness in terms of reorganisations and redundancies.
Listening to staff views and more consultation.
Increased business mind-set, better understanding of stakeholders and their diverse needs. Customer need combined with revenue generation needs to be in focus.
Better management of communication to the public and their expectations.
Further flexibility of working arrangements, including better tools. Improved consultation when planning systems (e.g. IT). Quicker smarter processes need technology and then skills to cut out manual processes. Enhanced flexibility of the workforce multi-skilled staff.
Consistent line management, better performance management, introduce a standard way of doing performance management, support to managers to implement.
More adherence to core processes and systems, to ensure these are not circumvented.
Enhanced development opportunities and processes: Make some training mandatory (e.g. IT systems), active encouragement to learn new skills and become more multi skilled, better access to informal learning opportunities, such as mentoring and secondments, training and the development budget. Enhance leadership skills in managers, more training on performance management, managing flexible working, change management, writing strategy documents, workforce planning. Business skills, system training (finance for non-financial managers, data security) that makes it easier to deliver the end product. Fast track development programmes for existing staff.
Staff sessions on customer service, managing change, stress and career development.
Update HR Policies, e.g. tighten sickness and disciplinary processes and communicate changes to managers. Review T&Cs to support TOM (e.g. rota systems, new ways of working, increased flexibility). Clear guidance on flexible working and working from home.