City of South Perth, Western Australia, has launched the first phase of its three-year digital transformation project, incorporating a strong focus on ensuring employees are ready to embrace change and accept new ways of working.
Chief Executive Officer, Geoff Glass, said it was important to acknowledge that any change brings challenge.
“The City is replacing multiple systems with a single, integrated, cloud-based solution – OneCouncil by TechnologyOne.
“This means big changes for our employees. It’s not only our systems that are changing, but our processes and ultimately the way we serve our customers and community.
“We committed to not just training our employees in using the new system, but also implementing a range of activities and tools to support the development of change management competency across our workforce.
“In the early stages of the project, we invited Dr Sean Ridley from the Australian Institute of Management along to speak to our leadership team. Dr Ridley shared his insights on the neuroscience behind people and change and accentuated the importance of their role as change leaders.
“In the lead up to go live, we followed up with a session on what it really means to be a change leader, the importance of involvement and empowerment in the change process and dealing with resistance to change. This learning was cascaded down to supervisors and coordinators at two further workshops.”
To complement this program, the City ran a Coping with Change lunch and learn session for employees, which focused on understanding responses to change and building resilience.
