Find out how members of the HR Team at Wiltshire Police Force are making the most of free access to the Improvement Tools to support change management and continuous improvement.

1) What prompted your organisation to use the Improvement Tools?

The tools were highlighted at a council/Improvement and Development Agency (IDeA) event on best practice and collaborative working. This led me to register to the Improvement Network, and review the tools content. I could see a wealth of 'free' information valuable to me, as well as provide further support to other managers from Wiltshire Police Force.

2) What particular tool/s did you first look at and why?

The Change Management tool, and in particular the continuous improvement work sheets. As partners in organisational development we manage the HR implications of change. Our main aims are to:

• lead, coordinate, develop and maintain the portfolio of HR project involvement
  
  
• positively promote change within the force
  
  
• represent the Force and Police Service in consultation and negotiations with external bodies, partners and staff representatives such as Unison/Police Federation
  
  
• provide a professional and responsive day to day specialist advisory service to the HR team, staff and senior managers of the force
  
  
• oversee the effective implementation of the HR element of Force change programmes
  
  
• coach, manage and development both HR and project teams during the span of change.

We work on a consultancy basis to support senior managers in the implementations of change, so the continuous improvement work sheets were very useful documents.

Examples of the types of change work undertaken in the last year are:

• restructure, re-organisation, re-assessment through workforce modernisation
• business re-engineering - assessing the right skills needed for the right role
• the introduction of progression schemes

3) Did you adapt the tool to suit your particular workplace situation? If so, how?

Yes, we did. We created briefing packs and guidance notes for managers by adapting the change management tools. We also created HR briefing packs to assist our colleagues in understanding the change process and methodologies behind this.

We are also creating a portal page on 'Organisational Change'. This is still very much in its infancy but we hope to launch in 2010 to the force. This will have subject headings with support documentation covering the following:

• what is change
• what is happening at the moment within the force
• change methodologies
• how do we manage it
• how does it work, what we do in Organisational Development etc

We will also have links to relevant organisations and partnerships, such as the Improvement Network.

4) What have been the short-term benefits so far, and what do you anticipate the longer-term benefits will be for you and your staff from using the tools?

• Short-term benefits: excellent resource, wealth of 'free' information, valuable immediately.
• Long-term benefits: shared resource - accessible to work force, consistent, clear support info.

5) Do you intend to measure impact?

We do this already indirectly through our customer feedback. We assign scoring to the feedback request and recording scores to demonstrate team improvement. HR team feedback is requested at the conclusion of projects of work. The feedback received includes a lessons learned log, which focuses on the implementation of major change.

6) Have you recommended other staff to subscribe to access the Improvement Tools for their own personal development needs?

Yes - to teams that have started a change project via our briefing pack. For example with our Corporate Development team, and our fellow change management colleagues both inside and outside Wiltshire Police Force via our best practice club.

7) Are there other topic areas you plan to look at, if so, which ones and why?

Yes, the Workforce Planning and Resource Management knowledge tools.

8) How would you rate the overall comprehensiveness of the tools available?

Good - it's the practical nature of the guides that are most useful.

Note: The responses to these questions were provided by Lucy Blakeborough and Jacquita Mead, HR Partners in the Wiltshire Police Force Organisational Development Team.