Joe O’Sullivan, Executive Director of Corporate Services and Transformation, has been leading on this as an area that needed improvement in our Organisation Action Plan. Alongside colleagues from our Corporate Property, modern ways of working (MWoW) and HR teams, they have made progess in a number of areas.
In November, we ran a council-wide survey asking for feedback which informed our new working arrangements policy. The new policy was launched in April and we now have a clearer understanding of current and future building occupancy levels.
Alongside this, our property and MWoW project teams have been working with an external consultancy to engage and consult with colleagues from across the four departments. Their aim was to understand what options we could consider for best use of our buildings and our wider estate, given our new working arrangements, and to reduce unnecessary wastage of office space. They have reviewed all the feedback given by colleagues from the November survey, focus groups and engagement forums to form their proposals.
They have also engaged with our disability employee network group to ensure we consider accessibility and from Monday 15 May, for approximately 4 weeks, our Corporate Property team will be carrying out an accessibility audit at County Hall and the surrounding buildings in the complex. We are exploring and confirming some final details as we consider how to take this work forward.
We continue to encourage teams to make best use of their work spaces and tailor them to suit their needs. We are also working on improvements around some other areas of feedback received, such as availability of IT, equipment and locker space.
Next week we will share what we’ve been doing to address feedback raised through the employee survey on communications and leadership visibility.