Hi everyone,
I wanted to start this week’s blog with a thank you to everyone who was able to attend our latest transformation day at Pippbrook last week. We started the day with around 100 of us in an online briefing about the day ahead. It was fantastic for me not to be talking to myself (!) and to see so many people keen to hear more about the progress we’re all starting to make together. During the day, much like last time, we split our information sharing into four “corners” of Pippbrook. I led the Transformation Strategies update and had some great discussions with you about our aspiration to “shift left” – I’m hoping to hear that phrase popping up in everyday conversations! It seemed like this simple concept is resonating with us. I really enjoyed the ideas it sparked in you about how we can focus on improving customer service and reducing our more costly interactions. To see the final version of the strategies click here. It would be helpful if you can find time to talk through these in team meetings and identify where you think your roles and processes can start to evolve over the next few years to match our organisational aims.
Mike talked you through the progress we’ve made completing 24 service reviews between May and July. These resulted in more than 400 ideas, most of which fit into 11 themes (such as finance, procurement, fees & charges, “shift left” etc). As Mike explained, we are now working with SLT to refine the long list of opportunities into a short list of key projects for 2024-5 and beyond. Once we’ve done that, we can share the Evolve 2026 first phase programme with you at our next transformation day. That’s not to say everything being identified is yet to start – we have already launched the customer service review exercise with four of our higher volume services (Housing, Revenues, Benefits and Environmental Health) who are keeping records of customer interactions across a variety of channels over the course of a working week. This will feed into a set of decisions we can take to streamline how we interact with customers – and we’ll share the insight and actions flowing from that when we next meet with you.
As I’ve said before, not all our projects will fall under the “transformation” banner – most will actually be continuous improvement exercises. So, in the other two corners, Leo (our new CI practitioner) held a fun introduction to CI session with a fast-paced ball game that really got you thinking about how process improvement works in practice! You also got to spend some time in our new innovation space, which is shaping up to be somewhere we can escape to and be more creative ?.
In the final corner Hannah and Leanne led a really important session to launch our new CI network – this is key to the success of Evolve 2026. Feedback from you so far has been that you want tangible ways to get involved with change, so we’re asking you to sign up to become CI champions who support smaller exercises to improve our ways of working. This could be helping to design a new web-form, testing new products, or mapping processes to help us improve customer service. As a CI Champion you would sit on the Continuous Improvement Forum to review and influence ideas for improvement that are submitted by staff. From mid-September the CI Group will meet around every 6 weeks for about an hour. If you choose to be part of this forum there will be exciting opportunities for skills-based workshops with in-person and online training to expand your knowledge and learn more about CI tools and techniques. Finally, as part of this launch we are also in the process of building a new online portal which will enable you to submit ideas, track the progress of your idea, and interact with ideas that others have submitted. Look out for an article on Molly next week if you’re keen to find out more!
We’ve always been conscious that not every team is able to make it to our all-staff days, so we were delighted that two teams immediately took up our offer to go to them instead! On Monday, I went to Dorking Halls with Leo to attend their weekly management meeting. We got into an interesting discussion about “shift left”, the types of new skills we’ll need and the importance of celebrating CI successes. Leo and Hannah also travelled to Leatherhead on Tuesday to visit Mole Valley Life colleagues – and really got stuck into our now famous ball game – getting the time down to 2 seconds! Well done ?
Finally, I’ll be starting a change leadership book club (“Future-Engage-Deliver”), supported by transformation colleagues, which will be open to all. If that sounds like something you’ll be interested in watch for a Molly article that will explain more about the Autumn launch date and our plan to have a library where you can borrow the books!
As I sign off, I want to send my best wishes to anyone who has been caught up in A-Level results day. I hope it went well for your family – my daughter was delighted, which is a relief! And if it didn’t go to plan, remember Jeremy Clarkson’s now famous annual tweet about how failing them never did him any harm! Our paths and journeys meander throughout our lives, and when one door closes another will soon open.. I’m off to Bournemouth to collect my son from university, as he’s now finished his mechanical engineering degree… his next task is to find permanent employment for 45 years (no pressure!).
Seonaid