London Borough of Enfield

By: Karl Daly

03/07/2019

We partnered with a local authority in North London to support them in delivering an ambitious transformation project. Despite austerity measures, the council wanted to ensure that they are fit for the future – delivering services with and for the community, being more customer focused and developing a greater commercial mindset.

Our support was commissioned to help embed the new ways of working into the day to day activity of all staff. The core question was, “is what I/we are doing helping to make this borough be the best place to live, work and do business?”

The council had already made a lot of progress. Working with the CEO and using our bespoke change impact model, we initially undertook a short, focused piece of diagnostic work and then together we focused in on those areas that would add the most value across the organisation.

What we did

  • We worked closely with the OD team to review the nature of the support they provided to council departments and made recommendations for how to refocus their work
  • We developed a set of leadership and all staff competencies based on the new council values
  • We designed and ran facilitated leadership sessions for the CMT, Heads of Service and middle managers to support the creation of a shared language and understanding of the behaviours needed to be effective leaders and manage performance more proactively
  • We worked with specific teams to eliminate working in silos and create a better understanding of both internal and external customer focus
  • Working with the HR function, we developed consistent role profiles linked to the core competencies needed

Outcomes

  • An environment was created that encourages debate, challenge and questioning resulting in several innovative initiatives developed by teams across the council
  • The OD team have seen more cross departmental and team collaboration
  • The HR advisers have reported an improvement in the management of difficult performance related situations
  • In an evaluation exercise, leaders reported having greater clarity of purpose and direction giving them the confidence to take more risks
  • Managers have greater clarity of people management skills and behaviours of new recruits and promotions