Our annual staff survey tells us how we are performing, but it also highlights the huge differences in staff engagement scores across and even within departments and offices.
This is worrying because we know that civil servants who are more engaged are not only more productive, but also less likely to be off sick and far more likely to take responsibility for their career development.
To address this issue and promote better engagement, we launched the east of England Staff Engagement Network at the end of April.
The aim of this network is simple: to find out what makes a difference for staff, and then share these examples of good practice across our network to create an engaged and enthused team.
We launched the network with presentations from a number of speakers.
Rob Neil talked about the Ministry of Justice addressing these problems
Bernie Wilson revealed how the Department for Work and Pensions office in Bury St Edmunds achieved an overall engagement index score of 73%
Phil Rimmer and Fiona Neathley from ACAS offered advice about supporting a more harmonious workplace
Look at the presentation to read more about the to see more about the issues discussed.
Attendees were encouraged to get involved by taking part in a number of small groups looking at the issues faced in making the network a success. Read the table conversations
We’ve created a virtual network which relies on staff sharing information and case studies, and we’ll be regularly updating you all about our activities here on the blog. We’ll also arrange at least 1 group meeting each year.
If you are interested in joining in the East please email Ian Barton or comment on this blog if you would like to see something similar in your area.
A full report of the launch event is available here
7 comments
Comment by Jo Marshall posted on
Hi - is there anything similar going on the the South West ? Staff Engagement is an area we are looking at within HMRC and I would be interested in taking part / getting something started across the departments locally to share best practice etc.
Comment by Ian Barton posted on
Thanks for your interest, Jo. I will check with my counterpart in the SW (Nita Murphy) and get back to you as soon as possible. I am sure she'll welcome your willingness to get involved.
Comment by Sally Smith posted on
I see Jo Marshal is keen to get in touch with anyone in the SW. I am the Engagement
Champion for my bit of DWP in Bristol. Not sure where you are Jo, but if you are in the Bristol area, we could meet up and exchange ideas.
Comment by John posted on
Would love to look at your presentation but it has been blocked by the dwp filtering software. I needless to say don't feel engaged.........
Comment by John Mark Haskey posted on
John, good to hear of your interest in staff engagement and I'm sorry that you are unable to view the presentation. I have emailed you a PowerPoint version and a PDF version is available. We are working with the Government Digital Service (GDS) to encourage departments to allow access to the most commonly used internet tools. In this case I was suprised that Slideshare was not accessible by DWP collegues (Slideshare is part of LinkedIn which you can access). For public domain or unrestricted materials it makes sense to use the freely available internet tools and it avoids clogging up email inboxes.
Comment by Gordon Cains posted on
As another DWP employee, I find it intensely annoying that we are supposed to embrace digital when we have old unsuitable computer resources - and are not allowed to access anything "online" - including DWP published materials.
Please send me a link to the Powerpoint presentation - I am "supporting" the work of the ERIC/eric teams here and every resource I can access would be much appreciated, as there is precious little.
Comment by John Mark Haskey posted on
Gordon, I have emailed you a copy of the presentation and have let our north west collegues know of your interest. Many parts of the Civil service need to invest in up to date IT systems to drive up staff engagement so that we can focus on improving our services to the public.