Wrexham County Borough Council

The project was designed to enhance service delivery, reduce sickness absence, and to reduce staff turnover by improving commitment, loyalty and motivation. Over 50 initiatives were tested, all with ‘before and after’ measures. Sickness absence fell to 7.1% against a (UK) national average of 14.1% for social services. In the measured year, staff turnover fell to 4.1% (local government as a whole expects around 14%).

Examples of service achievements and of improvements for employees include the following:

• The food safety inspection programme is up to date with overdue evening inspections tackle and out of hours work and late meetings more easily accommodated;
• Public/client contact hours have been extended outside normal office hours;
• There was better cover of service in a pilot scheme that staggered leave year terms around the financial year. More people were present at the end of the holiday period, namely March;
• Employees were more able to balance personal and work commitments because of a significant extension in the number of flexible working practices, introduced in this programme. These have included the removal of core hours (but with self rostering), extension of the working day and excess leave. The initiatives included:
  1. Removal of core hours but with compulsory self-rostering implemented;
  2. Extension of the working day to promote staggered working and extended opening hours;
  3. Weekend working - as part of the contracted working week and at no additional cost to the Council;
  4. Purchase of additional leave - from 1 day to no maximum and for any reasons with a supporting business case. Cost of days are spread over a 12 month period;
  5. Compressed week/fortnight working;
  6. Ad-hoc working from home - targeted and time-specific and promoted as the exception rather than the norm. It assists those staff that do not need to be present in the office when report-writing for example. Selfrisk assessments were carried out in the home by the individual concerned and records kept on file;
  7. Increased carry over of additional hours (over and above usual maximum in the flexible working hours scheme). However, this was capped at a maximum of 21 hours per 4-week period;
  8. Unlimited ‘swipes’ (in time recording system) for breaks to attend medical or other appointments;
  9. Staggered leave year (for some teams) to avoid the usual end year problem of too many employees wishing to use up their annual leave allocation at the same time.

“We have promoted a culture where staff feel valued for the work they produce and for how the service is covered, rather than where they are at any particular time. This involves trust. By promoting this way of working and trusting staff to deliver the service in a way that also assists them to find their WLB, they feel empowered and with empowerment comes increased loyalty to the employer, increased motivation and ultimately increased productivity and service delivery.”