Interview with Graham White

Article Type: From: Human Resource Management International Digest, Volume 17, Issue 6

Interview by Ruth Young

Director of HR at Westminster City Council, Graham White recently oversaw the implementation of a staff-wide discussion forum on the council intranet. Originally introduced as a means of discussing and communicating information about a cross-council pay review the forum has developed to become a vital tool,boosting employee engagement and allowing staff to share views and ideas. Here Graham discusses the project.

Could you explain what led to the introduction of the discussion forum at the Council?

I have been a long-term advocate of the benefits of technology and HR working in partnership and have used it in all of my HR strategies, so it was a natural next stage for me when I knew I was going in to a period of very intense consultation that I really needed to have as many options and vehicles as possible for getting into the hearts and minds of staff. I am a fervent user of Twitter, blogging and Facebook so it was natural for me to think, how can I use these social engagement tools within the workplace?

These kinds of technologies are not often traditionally linked with city councils. Did you face any kind of opposition to the idea?

No, absolutely not. We have one of the finest communication teams I have ever worked with and actually their adventures into the use of technology positioned the project extremely well. The team were already using some of the web 2.0 technologies for engaging with customers and running surveys so it was very easy for me to build on their already excellent work.

Was it necessary to take any actions to drive usage of the site?

It wasn’t really difficult, we were changing the way we paid people so you focus minds very quickly when you start telling them that one of the good places to get information on the changes in how we pay you is on the web forum!We used our traditional communications methods to signpost people to the web forum and at the same time we continued to press for more engagement: “tell us what you want, tell us what you think, does this make sense?” And if you do not want to write a letter or send emails then put something on the forum.

So was it necessary to drive usage after the consultation had finished?

No, it is used for everything from complaining about stolen milk to offering free tickets to television shows. One of our equality groups have also taken advantage of the forum and often use it to invite new members or to discuss issues relating to equality within the Council. So, actually I think what the pay review did was alert people to the value of the forum and then allowed them to start using it for a range of other things. There are a whole host of issues on there; looking at it today for example we have just launched a new volunteering scheme so we have put a site up there asking what people think the scheme should be like. We have another discussion about the staff lesbian, gay and bi-sexual network, there is something about St George’s day,Westminster charity football and Mastermind auditions – it’s brilliant!

With all of the diverse content, has it been necessary to police the use of the site?

No, not in any sense and I can think of probably only one occasion in my time when we had to take an item down because we felt it was personally offensive or inappropriate in the way it identified an individual. To date we have worked on the basis of if you want a good free site then treat it maturely and so far we have done that. We have had some very robust discussions and some very bold comments but they have always been tempered with common courtesy and decency in the way people express their views. There is nothing wrong with vehemently disagreeing with another employee or a manager as long as there is a sense of appropriateness in how you express that view.

Have you got any plans to further develop the use of Web 2.0 – for example do you use it for recruitment purposes?

No, not yet and that is one of the main difficulties with it at this stage,the difference between the intranet and the Internet and the need for firewalls and with the latest scare on this latest worm that’s out there I think we will struggle a little. That said, what we are looking at is advancing use of some of the well-known social networking sites to start planting Westminster groupings on them, so for instance Facebook. I would also like to see within our recruitment site on the external website something where people could report back on how the process went, what they felt, that sort of thing because of course previous applicants are the best recruiters for new applicants.

Why do you think the project worked so well for Westminster City Council?

I think, and this is just my personal view, that we treated our staff maturely and we gave them a voice. Never at any stage did we attempt to impose something on them but instead said “here are our views, here are our propositions and we want to hear from you”. And I think if there was one single thing that triggered the forum to take off, it was the first time we were able to say, “following comments on the forum, we’ve reviewed the following … ” In other words it suddenly had credibility because having listened to what staff said we changed something, for example we did have a system for paying honorariums every six months, staff said that was far too long, that is now down to 12 weeks and that was as a direct intervention from staff raising that issue on the forum.

If other organizations were planning to implement a similar scheme, what would your advice be to them?

I think twofold; firstly it is absolutely critical that you let staff know it is there, people can spend far too much time designing something like this and forget to advertise it and secondly having put it there, make sure it gets used. And that is not just about management planting things in it, it is about signposting people to it and asking for their views and opinions.