Friday 4 January 2011

Morning all – February already which means the cricket season is nearly here. I wish. Shame about our ODI performance down under though. I spent Christmas sledging my Auntie who lives down under, I guess it’s her turn now.

I’ve just completed the staff survey on line. You may well ask why we are bothering to survey staff in the middle of budget cuts and at a time when we are asking for volunteers to take redundancy? I believe that this is absolutely the right time to survey staff. We need to understand what’s going well, what’s not and how we can work together as a team to improve the latter. I shan’t be waving my magic wand when we get the results in a few weeks, but I do promise that we will work together to address the issues arising. Could you all please take the survey today – it’s on our intranet. While you’re there, take a look at HR Direct also – it’s a great, cutting edge web-based service that stands up to anything I’ve seen elsewhere.

On Tuesday, I had the privilege of visiting South Tyneside Council. I spent the day with their Corporate Leadership Team discussing new and innovative approaches to the issues we face jointly; better procurement and being more commercially minded, using Systems Thinking to improve service performance whilst reducing cost and some of the wider issues around management and leadership during tough times. It was great to spend time with like-minded and passionate colleagues who are trying to make a real difference to their community. Just like Wiltshire.

Finally for this week, here’s something for all you team leaders, supervisors, and managers to consider. Ten ways to reinvigorate your team on a wet and windy February morning:

1. Listen to them
2. Be honest and transparent
3. Tell good-news stories
4. Engage staff in decision making
5. Set ambitious targets...
6. ... but make sure they’re achievable
7. Give rewards for a job well done...
8. ... and hold bad performers to account
9. Take the team to the pub
10. Think glass half full

Thanks for reading and speak again next week.

Carlton