My current job title is Intranet and e-Services Development Manager for a large County Council. I’ve worked in public sector for 20 years in a variety of roles – broadly these roles have been: Auditor, Business Services Officer, PC Training Manager, Contracts and Resources Manager, Best Value Officer, eGovernment Implementation Officer, Project Manager and Intranet Manager.
My career objective has always been to gain transferrable skills. I have a HND in Business and Finance and a Diploma in Management Studies. In the past I’ve attended the following courses: Training the trainer, PRINCE2 foundation, Project Management, etc. The most recent workshops and courses I have attended are: Business Process Management, Implementing Effective Change, Lean Systems, Customer Channel Management.
My main area of interest – to put it simply – is to help staff to do their job more effectively. I’m not paying lipservice to public sector initiatives, I firmly believe that if staff had the tools to work smarter, they would enjoy their jobs more. If staff could see where they fit in the process they would be more likely to “own” their jobs. If staff could see the benefits of why they do their jobs they would take pride in what they did. But that doesn’t mean throwing technology at them.. whatever is on offer has to provide customers and staff with tangible benefits. So I like to challenge change and only embrace it if it truly offers a better service using smarter processes with added value.
I can often be heard to say – “if it ain’t simple, it ain’t right”. If we want to offer a better customer service, we have to provide the back office process, that process should be streamlined, should be easy to manage and maintain, and be accountable. If this is achieved, this can give staff time to get on with customer support and to research and develop even better customer services.
I spend a lot of time with the business, investigating their needs and all too often I see that techonology adds unnecessary complexity to processes, staff become cynical as they lose sight of what their service should be providing for the customer as they become caught up providing an internal service.
