camden insider_digital news_v6
TRANSCRIPT
01 next
Camden InsiderIssue 1
Welcome - Mike Cooke Ways of working Recruitment in house The Lync effect
06
Top tips to get your office in shape
08
Postman Pat is going digital!
07
The Camz
CONTENTSWelcome - Mike Cooke 02
Ways of working 03
Recruitment in house 04
The Lync effect 05
Top tips - office in shape 06
The Camz 07
Postman Pat goes digital 08
02 03 04 05
>
02
Welcome to your new staff newsletter, The Camden Insider, pulling together all the exciting news and developments that you need to know about to help keep you informed.
2014 is going to be an exciting year in Camden. We’ll see the full adoption of agile working, the opening of our new building at 5 Pancras Square and lots of opportunities for you to develop.
In each edition of the newsletter we will feature the ways of working, showcasing how colleagues are putting them into action. Our ways of working will help us deliver the Camden Plan, to make Camden a better borough. It is important we all embrace them and share our success stories. See page 3 for more information.
The roll-out of Lync will transform how we use the telephony system and our Lync floorwalkers are doing a great job of helping us all use and understand the new system. See page 5 for more details.
On page 6 you will find lots of useful information on making your building and working environment better by reducing the amount of paper and clutter. This will make our buildings more tidy and efficient and will create a more modern and uncluttered space for us all.
I know there is a lot happening and many new things are being rolled out but I am confident that we will rise to the challenges and continue to succeed and deliver for the people of Camden.
Digital strategyTake a look at the Digital Strategy, and see how our digital approach will be changing the services we deliver and the borough as a whole. It plans for open data, collaboration, skills and support for entrepreneurialism and growth to be at the heart of what we do, and to support us in delivering the Camden Plan.
Right first timeTo ‘get it right’ we need to know what is important to our customers - what is the purpose of our service from their perspective? And what would ‘getting it right’ mean for them? A number of reviews are happening across our services to do this.
Mike Cooke - Chief Executive, London Borough of Camden
We have a whole range of staff working in all sorts of places and some information in this newsletter is more relevant to some than others. However, it gives an overview of what is happening in the organisation as a whole and we hope to have a good balance of items.
Coming soon will be some focus groups for staff who are not office based to ensure we are covering things that are accessible and relevant to you.
This is your newsletter and we are keen to hear your ideas on what you would like us to include.
News in brief
Insider
Welcome
Please send them to:
next back> <
03
The Ways of Working (WOWs) are how we all work, and in each newsletter we will bring a WOW to life.
It is worth reminding ourselves of how we do this each day. How do you deliver for the people of Camden? Work as one team? Take pride in getting it right? Find better ways? Or, Take a lead?
Natasha Constantinides is someone living the WOWs and she poetically demonstrates for us, work as one team.
Natashsa says: This story is a tribute to a customer who became a friend, when I worked as a Project Monitoring and Support Officer. I worked in an office, which was also a drop in centre for people looking for work or training.
Natasha Constantinides - Contract support officer, HASC
“
”Find out more and tell us how you wow at
essentials/wows
Ways of working
next back> <
04
Recruitment in-house
At the start of this year, Camden’s resourcing and recruitment service came back in-house to help us recruit the best people who share our attitudes, values and behaviours.
The team will work closely with hiring managers across all the directorates, providing consultancy advice and support for Camden’s hiring requirements across permanent and fixed term vacancies.
Also in use will be a new online recruitment system, TalentLink, which handles each stage of the process from start to finish.
There is also a new agency worker system called Matrix SCM, that the team can help you with.
To kick off the recruitment process, or to simply get some advice about your hiring plans, get in touch with the team by phone: x6655 and pressing option 1, or by email: [email protected].
Or take a look on essentials: xxxxxxxxx
Spring into performance reviewsIt’s that time of year again! We are preparing for the end of year performance reviews. The review meetings should take place before the end of April. Giving us all the oportunity to have a real quality conversation about our progress and development. New objectives and development plans will need to be set for the upcoming performance year as well.
Those of you that completed this last year, no need to fear, the process hasn’t changed so it should be familiar for everyone. If you are new to Camden or need a refresher then detailed guidance is available on Essentials (search under ‘Performance Development’) and a number of half-day
workshops have been scheduled to cover all aspects of performance development, including career conversations. Online training is available at any time.
For more information visit the performance development pages on essentials
Or speak to your manager
Performance Reviews
Make sure you get a date in the diary soon for these meetings.
next back> <
05
The Lync effect
Meet the floorwalkers
As we continue to roll-out and introduce Lync telephony to everyone, we hear from ‘floorwalker’ Akin who tells us his handy hints for getting the most out of Lync.
The Lync ‘floorwalkers’ joined with the mission of ensuring a smooth transition over to our new telephony system. They are dedicated to helping you with any questions or queries you have with Lync and are available in all of our offices. Akin says: “After a team has had their training we will give them a visit to help them with any problems – look out for us in our green jackets, we will be visiting your team soon!”
Over 2,000 colleagues are already using Lync. Whilst the overall feedback about Lync has been mixed, Akin believes that getting to grips with new technology takes time. He said: “When you start something new everything does not just fall into place straightaway, like anything else, it takes time.”
“Keep practicing everything that you learned in your training - Lync is easy once you get to know it.”
We are dramatically changing the way we do things to become a more agile, customer focused organisation. Lync can help us to work seamlessly and flexibly with colleagues across the Council wherever we are. Akin says: “Lync is perfect for agile working, your phone now moves with you. You can work anywhere”.
There are step by step guides on the Agile C Space. The guides will help you through the most common Lync queries such as setting up hunt groups and transferring calls. If you would like a more detailed session, we also have a series of master classes and surgeries to help you learn about specific areas of Lync including using instant messaging, video calling and desktop sharing.
Akin’s top tip: When you are at your desk, remember to plug in your red network cable, this will give you a faster connection and reduce any Lync call quality issues.
“”
Training is the first step but the learning really starts once you are using Lync in your office, at home or wherever you are working.
For further information visit the Agile C Space.
next back> <
06
Top tips to get your office in shape
We currently hold over 6.5km of paper in our Council buildings. We all need to dramatically reduce the amount of paper and items we store in our buildings. So we can create a more modern and flexible environment.
The aim is for all this to be done by May. Here are five top tips about how to start clearing out your offices to make it a brighter and more pleasant place to work, as well as paving the way to working in a much more agile way.
• Bin it. Richard O’Brien, corporate records manager says “Check whether you need all the documents you have on file and if not set some time aside each week to get rid of paper you don’t need via confidential waste.”
• Get it scanned. Help is available to support you in getting regularly accessed records scanned. The purchase to pay team in finance scan all invoices when they come into the post room. Andrew Coulson said: “By getting these invoices scanned, we reduced the storage requirement for the team by over 100 metres a year. It also means that staff across the Council can access invoice copies from wherever they are, security of access and storage is improved and that the P2P team can work more agilely.”
• Store it offsite. Richard O’Brien said “Seldom accessed records can be sent offsite so that they are held safely and securely. Information that is no longer accessed regularly but that does need to be kept should be done so offsite or in the records store.”
• Team clear out sessions. Emma Winn, from our Camden Learning Disabilities Service said “We used an existing meeting time which was in all of our diaries and just converted it to a ‘clear up morning’. We have empty cupboards now! And we are much more organised in terms of knowing what equipment we have and where it is kept. Overall we have reduced the amount of space we use massively.”
• Final Friday clear out days. Every last Friday of the month spend half a day clearing out your office. Get some confidential waste sacks from the Corporate Property team and get stuck in.
Regardless of which building you are based in, we will all be working in a much more agile way now and in the future, so everyone needs to play their part in helping to get rid of the amount of paper and items we have in our offices.
Help is available. Just ask. Or read more on Essentials/binscan-store
Or contact your change lead.
next back> <
07
At the end of January a strange email appeared in our inboxes from an email address called ‘The Camz’, with a character called Jimmy looking for his hunt group.
Over the last couple of months we have introduced Nico, Hannah and Yasmin who will help us to navigate us through this year’s changes. Including the roll out of Lync and information on bin, scan, store.
Peter Holt, Head of Communications said: “We received great feedback from colleagues. By using humour and a visual representation through cartoons we hope to get more people engaged.”
We spoke to various groups of staff who said that they would be much more interested to find the answers to the things that really mattered to them in a more creative way. As a direct result of this dialogue The Camz were born. The Camz provide the employee voice and tell it how it is!
The statistics show us that all the pages we link to from the cartoons are getting very high viewing figures
and many have people looking at them that haven’t before. The statistics also show us that people are spending time on the pages as well, so hopefully reading all the information and taking action.
Peter Holt, Head of Communications said: We received great feedback from colleagues. By using humour and a visual representation through cartoons we hope to get more people engaged.
“In the info box can we put. If you want to express and interest in joining the staff group who decide on the Camz, or you have any ideas on what we should include then please let us know:
”
The CAMZ
next back> <
08
Postman Pat is going digital!
Like Postman Pat, Camden Council is looking at new ways of managing the movement of mail around the organisation and borough.
The mail service will need to be in the best position to provide support across the Council’s services and new building from this summer. With agile working being a fundamental way in which we all work, a mail service will need to be in place that is effective for our customers and supports you and your services.
A review of the mail service is underway and we are working at pace to identify the best solutions. As part of this, fieldwork is being conducted across all directorates to understand the journey of mail, types and how it is received and managed.
The project is sponsored under the Business Support Review. You may come across our fieldwork team who will be looking at mail in your services. In addition, the subject may start to pop up in team meetings and through Change Champions.
We’re at the start but working fast. We’re listening, so if you have any comments or would like to see the project team to explain more then please contact:
Stephen Meah-Sims email:[email protected] or phone: 020 7974 5879
back <