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The problem

The company employs approximately 400 people, providing refuse collection, street cleaning and other services for a major city council.

Initial conversations with management and trade union representatives indicated that there had been a breakdown in the operational integrity of the service contract and that the local authority had issued penalties to the contractor for failure to perform within the contract specifications. Minor disruptions had escalated to full scale industrial action involving strikes, an overtime ban and work to rule. Management and union officials were under strain in retaining positive relationships with the workforce.

Aspire was asked to identify more clearly what the issues were, to propose ways to overcome these and to allow a smooth running operation. 

What we did

Align expectations

Aspire agreed with the senior management and full time officers that a complete review of the operational context, the process of work and the experiences of workers would be conducted to allow a full picture to be formulated.

All parties agreed that an objective assessment and a clear proposal for change would be the desirable outcome. They recognised that in initiating their analysis they were in effect committing to actions that would / should be seen as remedial.

It was also agreed that any review should involve the local authority as the 'owner / customer' of the contract and the services provided.

Gather data, case histories and perceptions

Aspire designed a consultation process to allow analysis of key issues and to allow free expression of any matter by a sample of the various constituencies. We also interviewed company directors and reps. Having formulated and agreed a basic understanding of the perceived issues a 'data list' was finalised for gathering a broader data set from the workforce.
Aspire set up discussion groups with a cross section of employees, including both management and key union representatives. Sessions were both analytical and discursive, providing empirical and anecdotal data for understanding results. Individual questionnaires were also distributed to people at all levels.

Some one-to-one interviews where also conducted with senior management, full time officials and with senior management in the city council.

Get to the point

Some tours of work process and shift duty with RCV's [refuse collection vehicles] and street cleaning operations where undertaken.
Approximately 25% of the company employees were involved. Our objective was to involve all parties in a close review of the company's existing operational methods and practices, any recent changes, new ideas and other comments generally.

Analysis of operational statistics such as missed bins, accidents and complaints also allowed a fuller picture and assisted our understanding of the anecdotal evidence.

The result

A draft report was distributed to management and unions simultaneously for comments on clarity, presentation and interpretation. These were discussed in a workshop environment with both management and unions present. The outcome of these sessions was to agree a way forward in terms of next steps and desired outcomes.

Once these had been cleared as acceptable a set of recommendations was proposed for action by the company. The recommendations focussed on:

• Business Case
• Quick wins
• Training
• Culture
• Procedures
• IT
• Client
  

The report was made available to the city council client for information and a summary report was written for all employees. A new management organisation was put in place and a series of briefings undertaken for the employees.