Portsmouth City Council

case study

Portsmouth City Council

Background

Portsmouth City Council have approximately 5,000 employees with the majority of the office based staff housed in the centrally located Civic Centre; nominally 2,500 staff, although only around 2,000 are thought to make regular use of the building. The Council is made up of 8 individual Directorates all set up to support specific areas of the community; these are ran independently whilst still all falling under the overarching remit of the Council.

Challenge

Developing a future agile working strategy

Having conducted an initial review of the project, Baker Stuart developed a thorough consultation programme that enabled a full understanding of the council’s needs drawing from various element of the WorkLOOK toolkit that we have developed to support clients;

Carrying out a series of structured interviews and engaging workshops with teams from all Directorates to understand a cross section of staff needs, perceptions, key adjacencies / interactions and to develop a vision for future working.
Undertaking filing and storage reviews to ensure that the space available was being used in the most appropriate manner.
Conducting utilisation surveys that provided information on how the space is actually used based on data and not on anecdotal information from the teams.
Using the above, Baker Stuart provided a workplace strategy and design guide to show potential changes that could and should be made, and have supported Portsmouth City Council in the development of their future agile working strategy.

solution

Developing a future agile working strategy

Carrying out a series of structured interviews and engaging workshops with teams from all Directorates to understand a cross section of staff needs, perceptions, key adjacencies / interactions and to develop a vision for future working.
Undertaking filing and storage reviews to ensure that the space available was being used in the most appropriate manner.
Conducting utilisation surveys that provided information on how the space is actually used based on data and not on anecdotal information from the teams.
Using the above, Baker Stuart provided a workplace strategy and design guide to show potential changes that could and should be made, and have supported Portsmouth City Council in the development of their future agile working strategy.

benefits

Long term workplace strategy

The data provided enables Portsmouth CC to make changes that bring together the separate Directorates and to form a more cohesive whole.
Suggested changes are in line with staff needs and perceptions and support the desire to create a workplace that people wanted to come to whilst allowing for flexible working patterns were appropriate
There is now a long term workplace strategy to provide consistency of approach and to work towards a blueprint for the finals stack of the building, to best suit all occupants.