Positively shifting culture and wellbeing in the public sector

How Trickle helped a government organisation improve their staff culture and wellbeing as they shifted to remote working during COVID-19.

Background

As a result of the pandemic, remote working has transformed the working culture of government and public sector organisations. In the first half of 2021, it was reported that nearly 60% of all British workers started working remotely following guidance to stay at home where possible.

Our client needed to adapt to the ‘new normal’ in the public sector and began considering a complete restructure. Known for being a people-first organisation, they sought our help in looking after their staff culture and wellbeing whilst the workforce turned fully remote.

Our client wanted to:

• Support staff physical and mental wellbeing better than they had previously.
• Create opportunities for staff to learn and develop whilst at home.
• Boost staff morale amidst troubling times.
• Provide additional help for those who need it, especially staff working in isolation.

The solution

After hearing the issues the organisation were experiencing, we knew we could help them optimise engagement with their staff, ensuring they felt valued even when working remotely.

Trickle would enable the organisation to:

• Foster a natural flow of 2-way communication from the ground up with their essential workers.
• Provide a safe space for staff to suggest new ideas and new approaches across projects.
• Provide a central platform to communicate with frontline employers, and highlight and promote access to wellbeing programmes or external supports where needed.
• Support staff physically and mentally as much as possible.

Flares for support

Trickle’s Flare tool provides an anonymous way for your people to seek direct support for concerns that they feel uncomfortable or unable to raise in person.

Flares are private, secure and flexible and are directed to specialist individuals or groups within any organisation, based on the category of the issue. For example, mental, physical or financial wellbeing concerns. Our client said they appreciated being able to see and assist when staff members were having a bad day and struggling with mental health problems.

The organisation used Flares as a way to prevent people from suffering in silence. People within their human resources department were available to reply directly to staff members who needed a little help through direct chat – including the option to remain anonymous if they wished.

Celebrating the moments that matter

The organisation also utilised our Fist Bump tool, where employees can congratulate each other on any good work and feel supported through the ‘like’ and ‘comment’ sections.

“This has proven to improve staff morale and boost teamwork,” a representative told us.

The results

Since implementing Trickle, the organisation has experienced a massive shift in workplace culture and wellbeing. Staff feedback has been overwhelmingly positive, with frontline employees, including carers, expressing a particular fondness for the feedback element of the app.

Staff also said they appreciated how flexible and user-friendly the whole process was. Using Trickle gave them a platform to clearly communicate schedules with their peers in a way they hadn’t been able to before. And their work-life balance improved as a result.

Using the platform allowed the organisation to connect with their staff during the global health crisis and create a strong sense of team morale – even when working from home.

Moving forward

The organisation committed to working with Trickle over a four-year period and will continue to support home-working for their staff. Moving forward, they plan to make more use of the data analytics and insights from our platform in shaping their strategic initiatives. The team highlighted in particular that they will be analysing which post themes in their Trickle feeds gained the most traction.

We’re looking forward to helping the organisation continue to make being at work a fulfilling and rewarding experience for their employees. Not to mention giving them the tools they need to manage the app and embed the tools within their everyday working patterns.

A happier workplace makes for a successful organisation and we are delighted to have made this a reality for our client.