Defining the Estates Blueprint for IT in Leeds
Work is something that you do... not a place that you go...
There are many lessons to be learned about the Covid-19 pandemic from a technology perspective. The speed in which people have become accustomed to working at home, for one. Prior to the pandemic, it’s fair to say many people may have never experienced a voice or video call via Microsoft Teams or Zoom, and now these tools have become part of everyday life.
We shouldn’t forget there’s a significant impact in working from home full time. The occasional appearance of kids, pets and our significant others in the background of video calls is now commonplace, but we must remember that this is the reality of transforming our homes into our places of work.
All this comes alongside some potentially negative impacts to our physical and mental health. In Leeds we’re encouraging staff to begin calls at 5 minutes past the hour where possible, block dedicated time out for lunch breaks and exercise, and check-in with each other on a regular basis to provide support. Sometimes, it’s great just to have someone to talk to, away from the formality of a work meeting.
We’re cautiously looking forward to being able to return to the office, but we know it will not be the same.
Shared buildings
In Leeds, the building in which I was previously based may never reopen in its current guise. As the city begins to contemplate the future of its public sector estate, we need to consider the increased use of public buildings for multi-disciplinary teams; for staff that may have been displaced from other buildings or from different organisations; and of course, interaction with the general public in these new settings, in a safe and Covid-secure way.
When you work across multiple organisations, or frequently visit partner organisations for meetings and work activities, the experience of being able to work alongside other partners is rewarding and often very productive. However, there can be nothing more frustrating than being unable to pick up Wi-Fi networks, printing, and accessing other IT services (helpdesk support, work apps or accessing network drives) which we would normally take for granted within our “home” organisation.
This is something I see frequently when I’m working across our City Digital Partnership. We have great relationships in place across various partner organisations, and a strong commitment towards working together to deliver our Health & Wellbeing strategy, but it can be very tricky to do the basics such as sharing and collaborating on documents, unless granted ‘guest’ access on Microsoft Teams for example. If we are struggling with this as a Digital team, then I’m sure the wider workforce is too.
And naturally, there may be physical obstacles such as gaining access to a new building in the first place – different ID cards and fobs, entirely new door entry systems and ‘signing in’ processes.
Estates Blueprint
The Leeds City Digital team is looking to create an Estates Blueprint, giving organisations in the city clear operational and technical standards for all public sector buildings in Leeds. This will be particularly useful for new sites being developed, as well as existing sites being modified for multi-organisational work.
This work will help us to identify and recommend rationalisation opportunities for our partnership, as well as helping to create a consistent experience for staff returning to existing and new places of work.
We are looking to test out some new capabilities and concepts which we hope will greatly improve the user experience, in turn bringing benefit to the clients and patients which we serve.
Our significant work as region in adopting and implementing solutions such as Govroam is a great example of how we can be successful in this space, and gives us a great platform to build on.
We’d love to hear from other areas, and other partnerships, where the adoption of common standards around IT provision across estates has been a success.