How a Scottish council with 6,000+ employees used Trickle to improve frontline communication, drive data-led decisions and create a psychologically safer workplace.
West Dunbartonshire Council serves roughly 90,000 residents and employs over 6,000 people across a wide range of services - from bin collections to schools to care homes. Alison McBride, the Strategic People and Change Manager, brought Trickle to the council as part of a broader digital transformation agenda.
The council wanted to demonstrate the positive side of embracing technology, helping to dispel common myths - that technology replaces people, or that it requires specialist training and equipment. Their goal was to find a solution that would enhance employee wellbeing, improve engagement and build digital skills across a dispersed, frontline workforce.
They needed a solution that was:
Trickle was chosen for its flexibility and accessibility as a mobile-first platform - a natural fit for a council workforce spread across dozens of locations and service areas. Key factors in the decision included:
The ability to post anonymously was central to creating a genuinely psychologically safe environment - particularly important in a large public sector organisation where staff may have felt reluctant to speak up.
These real-time wellbeing tools gave senior leaders a live read on staff sentiment, allowing them to identify concerns early and respond before issues escalated.
Trickle's ability to push messages and information to teams across many locations solved a longstanding challenge in reaching frontline workers who don't have access to shared office systems.
"The output from Trickle means I can say to the leaders, 'Look, here's what the results are saying. We need to take some action; we need to understand what's happening and how we can improve.'"Alison McBride · Strategic People & Change Manager, West Dunbartonshire Council
Trickle became the primary tool for reaching staff across dispersed locations, enabling efficient dissemination of information and real-time collection of employee feedback.
Features like MoodSense were widely adopted, enabling the council to gauge staff sentiment regularly and address concerns proactively rather than reactively.
Trickle's reporting capability allowed leadership teams to bring real employee feedback into management meetings - supporting decisions with evidence rather than assumption.
Staff could raise questions and flag concerns as they arose, leading to timely and relevant communications from the council rather than waiting for the next scheduled survey or meeting.
Anonymous posting encouraged more open and honest communication, contributing to a healthier workplace culture across a diverse and geographically spread workforce.
West Dunbartonshire's experience demonstrated that Trickle's value isn't just in the data it surfaces - it's in the conversations it makes possible. By giving frontline staff a voice and giving leaders the evidence to act on it, the council was able to move from intuition-led decisions to ones grounded in what employees were actually experiencing.
The council's journey also reinforced an important lesson: digital transformation in the public sector works best when it starts with people. Trickle gave staff a reason to engage with a new technology because it was genuinely built around them.
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