Leadership

 Progressing on the digital journey HMPO introduced a new Digital Premium Service (DPS).

This online service enables applications to be submitted and processed before the applicant attends
the office. This enables the passport to be ready for Collection at their appointment time .

This was a major change for staff as the electronic submissions enabled these applications to be
processed remotely for all 7 Counter locations . Glasgow was chosen as 1 of the 3 sites to process
this application type of all sites.

As the Counter Services manager I took the lead for the Glasgow Office.

I worked closely with the project team attending regular stakeholder meetings. I liaised with Steria ,
our business partners on site who were impacted by this change ensuring that we identified and
resolved any areas of risk. I reviewed policy drafts providing feedback to ensure it covered all aspects
of the customer’s journey using my knowledge and experience of customer behaviour.

I identified a team of ‘expert users’. Recognising this significant change would be a challenge for
some staff I tasked the expert users with ensuring that we had adequate support available for staff
on different working patterns at the ‘ go live’ stage.

During implementation I was on hand supporting staff and provided positive reinforcement to those
who were anxious about this process change.

Within the week this service was successfully transitioned into business as usual.

Keen to recognise staffs contribution I submitted a successful Special Bonus application for the staff
involved.
Working together

As the manager of the Interview Team within the Glasgow Office due to natural attrition over a short
time period the team were 40% down on staffing resource required to facilitate demand .

The decision was taken centrally to fill the vacancies with temporary agency staff. This had a
negative impact to staff morale as it had been hoped that these vacancies would be advertised on a
permanent basis.

Keen to ensure that staff had this development opportunity I negotiated with senior managers to
have the autonomy to fill 3 of the positions internally by advertising an Expression of Interest for a 6
-12 month period.

Prior to this decision I had worked over time to ensure that all staff within my teams were multi-
skilled across all the various work streams.

This had been achieved by promoting the benefits that these skills would bring . I had concerns that
this business decision would undermine the ‘one big team’ spirit that had been cultivated over time .

To successfully transition the agency staff into our office while maintaining the service that we
provided to our customers it was necessary for these staff to continue to work in the interview
officer role until the agency staff were fully competent in their role .

I took the decision to have a meeting with the team to discuss the impacts to them and their
colleagues.
I explained fully the decision making process and listened to them as they communicated their
frustration. I challenged them when I felt that they may have been inappropriate and I reminded
them that they had to treat all staff agency or otherwise in a respectful manner.

After this meeting I was pleased that even though it directly impacted staff who had provided
invaluable support in previous years that the staff concerned continued to provided support and in
fact supported the training of the agency recruits.
Delivery at Pace 

As the Counter Service manager I am responsible for ensuring that I maintain all SLA’s for the 5
different Counter workstreams.

Due to a recent recruitment campaigns the requirement for training support from experienced staff
resources as extremely high. Unfortunately across the Counter and Postal production teams the
availability of experienced staff was limited. .

This created a challenge as I had to ensure that I maintained our SLA’s for appointment availability
and turnaround times.

Having ensured that my team were multi skilled I realised that it would be challenging however I
recognised that we had the experience and versatility required to rise to this challenge.

Working closely with colleagues from the Postal Production command it was identified a 2 week
period were this would be fiercely challenging.

To ensure that the office maintained our service record I held a meeting with the Counter team
leaders. I explained the challenge and allocated them all individual tasks during this period. I
highlighted pinch points due to staff availability and agreed with them the action plan. During this
period we reviewed progress daily, monitored output and adjusted plans and resource deployment
as required due to increased Counter demand.

Additionally due to the accumulation of trainee checks I adjusted our plan to enable additional
support to the Postal production area to ensure that they maintained the 10 day turnaround target.

The end result was positive . The process was completed with no impact to the service we provide
to our customers.
Communicating, changing and improving

HMPO is currently on a major transformational journey, some throughout this program of change
staff have become anxious and disengaged. This has been reflected in our staff survey results.

In an effort to support staff the senior management team had created a presentation which each
HEO’s had to deliver to their teams. For me this was a challenge as I have over 70 staff working in my
area. As we are customer facility I also have to consider the impact to our business.

I booked rooms, created a schedule and allocated the task of a rota for staff attendance to a team
leader I decided to restrict each session to 12 to ensure that all staff had to responsibility to discuss
any concerns they may have. I delivered the presentation and then took the time to ask questions
recognising that for the groups