Agenda item

The Committee will receive an update on the return of staff to the office environment and future ways of working.

Contributors:

Katrina Wood, Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Resources

John Chilver, Cabinet Member for Property and Assets

Ian Thompson, Corporate Director for Planning, Growth and Sustainability

Sarah Murphy-Brookman, Corporate Director for Resources

John Reed, Service Director for Property and Assets

John McMillan, Service Director for HR & OD

Tony Ellis, Service Director for ICT

Paper:

Return of staff to the office environment and update on future ways of working

Ms Katrina Wood, Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Resources provided an overview of the return of staff to the office environment. Ms Wood summarised the slides appended to the agenda pack and updated the Committee of the progress made to date. Much of the work which had commenced had to be reviewed following the updated Government advice issued on 22 September that people should remain working at home, where possible. The following points were highlighted:

• A return to office steering group, chaired by the Corporate Director for Planning, Growth and Sustainability was in place and developing a dynamic action plan.
• Employees had been categorised to understand the numbers who needed to be in the office to undertake their role, who would predominantly be home based, whose role was community based and who needed to be office based because their home environment was not suitable. Signage had been installed in all council buildings, along with screens where customer contact would take place, there was a system for staff to sign in to maintain track and trace requirements and desks had been colour coded so staff knew where they could work when in the office.
• Increased support was in place for staff working from home including the Employee Assistance Programme which provided counselling, a number of Health and Wellbeing Champions, Webinars and eLearning courses and online wellbeing and fitness activities organised by staff. Staff had also been supplied with the appropriate software and hardware to undertake their roles from home.
• There had been comprehensive communications and engagement for staff including regular vlogs from the Chief Executive, virtual roadshows for staff, regular updates on the intranet, consultations with employee reps and trade unions respectively, and surveys to understand staffs experience at home.
• With government guidance changing to reflect the number of cases locally, guidance was kept under regular review and the impact of staff working from home was being considered as part of a longer term strategy.

The following key points were raised by the Select Committee members during discussion:

• A member queried what the workplace financial implications had been and the committee was advised that colleagues in facilities management had kept track of covid related spend and the Council would continue to lobby Government to cover these actual costs.
• The number of staff in each of the work place categories was queried. The Committee was advised that the vast majority of staff were working from home, role permitting but many staff did have to be in the offices, which had been made covid secure, for a variety of reasons. Mr I Thompson, Corporate Director for Planning, Growth and Sustainability advised that he would circulate numbers of staff in each category to members following the meeting.

Action: I Thompson

• The Committee was advised that 800 was the maximum occupancy within the offices, although not all space was necessarily utilised each day. There was a system in place to keep track of numbers in the offices on a daily basis and a requirement for staff to sign in and out.  Mr Thompson agreed to circulate a typical week’s figures for office use following the meeting.

Action: I Thompson 

• In terms of the responsibility the Council had for the health and safety of its staff, Ms Wood clarified that staff working at home had completed risk assessments. Capturing covid related sickness was also discussed. The committee was advised that covid had been recorded as a sickness code since July and the recorded numbers of staff taking time off due to the sickness was low, reflecting the rate of covid within the county. The overall sickness rate over the lockdown period was significantly lower than what would normally be expected over those months, a theme seen across many office based employers. The Committee gave thanks to all staff who had continued to deliver business as usual services in challenging circumstances and noted that the physical measures, signage and staff interactions had been exemplary.

Future use of office space was an area officers were starting to look at with options for the entire Council estate being reviewed. It was expected that this work would take place over the next 12 months and options would be presented to members.