Getting staff enthused about filing emails is a hard task, in fact discussing anything to do with filing can often result in serious eye-rolling, but the City of Nedlands, Western Australia, has found an interesting way to put information management at the top of everyone’s list.
Director, Corporate and Strategy, Lorraine Driscoll, keenly embraced Information Management (IM) Aware Month last year, and managed to encourage a significant number of staff to voluntarily take part in the program.
“We consider information management a key component in corporate efficiency, accountability and fraud prevention and while we’ve not had any serious incidents in these areas, prevention is always better than cure.”
A series of four ‘Learn at lunchtime’ sessions were held, covering the topics of record keeping responsibilities, controlled documents, searching on Sharepoint, and saving emails and shared files.
“The topics we included in these workshops are crucial when dealing with issues recently highlighted in a State Government survey undertaken by the Auditor General and completed by a small group of local governments in Western Australia.
“We have a relatively small workforce, given the size and complexity of our district, but with staff turnover and job-sharing, it’s important to have clear and concise procedures and systems in place.
“We’ve been putting a lot of emphasis on information management over the last few years, and this initiative has further built on that.
“Our IT team came up with the snapshot learning modules and our administration team provided a light lunch for participants, so there was positive engagement all round.”
