The BEST programme: improving employee engagement in Birmingham City Council

Summary

Change for any organisation can be hard. The frontline workforce can often feel left out. Birmingham City Council has placed its staff at the heart of the process, boosting their motivation in the process. Birmingham has set up a network of groups that are helping shape the future.

Key learnings for other councils

• Train frontline staff, rather than managers, as the leaders of workshop groups – this allows others to develop their skills and brings a different dynamic to the programme.
• Communication is essential – Birmingham has used email, newsletters and an intranet page, and programme leaders are given one-to-one support.
• The support of senior leadership is critical to the success of the programme.
• Allow people to innovate – people have the ideas and need the freedom and flexibility to make it happen.
• Keep an open mind – your staff know your customers best.

Background to the council

Birmingham City Council is a large local authority with a workforce of 55,000 serving one million residents.

The council is in the middle of a £450 million transformation plan. It aims to revamp its back office activities, including IT, finance and procurement. But in 2006, at the start of the project, the council was facing some serious challenges. It had been struggling to improve its two-star comprehensive performance assessment (CPA) rating. It became clear that the basic problem was that staff did not feel engaged with the organisation. Surveys showed that only around half of staff felt motivated, while confidence in management was even lower.

The problem and how we tackled it

Senior managers, led by the then newly-appointed Chief Executive Stephen Hughes, set out to find a way of empowering the workforce. To this end they sought the help of the organisational development consultancy Stanton Marris.

Birmingham designed a workshop programme around four values:

• Belief
• Excellence
• Success
• Trust

or BEST, as it became known.

The council set up a network of 1,800 BEST leaders, selected from each council team. They were trained to run group workshops. Each group was then asked to come up with three or four actions for improvements around customer service, partnerships or team working.

Workshops are held each year, although BEST items can also be raised at weekly team meetings.

In the first year alone, more than 6,000 service improvement actions were suggested. These included everything from ensuring people say “good morning” to re-working the way services are delivered.

As the programme has evolved, Birmingham made money available to help groups implement their initiatives. Following a summit of hundreds of BEST leaders in September 2007, the council found that many ideas were struggling to get off the ground for lack of funding. Birmingham therefore established a monthly ‘Dragon’s Den’ event, allowing BEST leaders and their teams to present a business case for up to £1,000.

The funding has led to a series of measures covering everything from office renovations to staff award schemes. The mobile library service was one of the recent teams to benefit after being given funding to produce over 1,000 commemorative silver anniversary reusable canvas bags to hand out to customers.

Meanwhile, the behavioural and support services team is developing an outside classroom after being granted £1,000.

More than 30,000 staff have been involved in the BEST workshops so far and feedback suggests they are having a major impact. The latest survey shows that staff motivation has increased from 56 to 86 per cent, while confidence in management has gone up from 29 to 68 per cent.

Hughes is delighted with the results:

“So often change causes anxiety and resistance because staff aren’t part of the process and feel powerless. We wanted them to feel this was their change and be able to personally commit to plans which they had decided upon together. I am immensely proud of the BEST programme and specifically the passion, energy and commitment that our staff have shown to making it a success. We should not underestimate the power of us all working together as one organisation.”

Who was involved and resources

BEST is overseen by Raffaela Goodby, the council’s Employee Engagement Manager. The programme is supported by five BEST programme managers – one from each directorate – plus one communications manager.

The team reports to Jason Lowther, the Strategic Director for Policy and Delivery, as well as the Chief Executive and Councillor Alan Rudge, the Cabinet Member for HR and Equalities.

Goodby believes the programme represents excellent value for money, costing less than £40 for each employee taking part in a workshop. What is more, the staff surveys indicate that £17 million has been saved through improved productivity. This is based on estimates by experts that re-engaged employees are worth about £2,000 each in increased outputs and productivity.

What we could have done better and next steps

Some BEST groups have found that managers have blocked ideas emerging from workshops. The council seeks to address this in 2009. According to Goodby:

“We need BEST leaders and managers to interact and understand each other more. We will probably hold a series of networking events with the aim of getting mangers understanding and appreciating the values of BEST more.”

Overall, Goodby is delighted with the progress made in the first two years:

“We have come a long way and that is a testament to the enthusiasm of everyone involved. We will carry on with the workshops next year and hopefully get lots more good ideas to improve the council.”

The success has even led to demands for Birmingham to share its experiences with other councils. BEST officials have spoken at a national event organised by the IDeA and are due to give a presentation at the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development employee engagement conference in 2009.

Contact

Raffaela Goodby, Employee Engagement Manager
Birmingham City Council
telephone: 0121 675 2354
email: raffaela.goodby@birmingham.gov.uk

Article published January 2009