MORE than £150,000 is set to be committed over the next two years by Bolton Council to a ‘staff engagement system’ as many employees continue to work from home.

The council is expected this week to give the go ahead for a ‘leading workforce engagement tool’ that will work towards ‘unifying staff around culture, behaviours, and performance management’.

In paper to be put before council leader David Greenhalgh this week, deputy chief executive of the council Sue Johnson put forward the case for purchasing the new computer equipment and software, to be used by more than 6,000 staff.

She said: “Supporting our workforce has always been a key priority of the council and we are continually striving for ways to further improve the way we engage and communicate with staff consistently across the whole of the organisation to ensure that all employees feel connected, and that they have an equal voice within the organisation and their views, opinion and concerns are listened too.

” The ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, where significant proportions of the workforce have and are likely to continue to work from home for the foreseeable future, coupled with having significant proportions

of the workforce we are unable to readily communicate and engage with, has further re-enforced the need and importance of being able to engage and support the whole of the workforce quickly and effectively.

“It is imperative that as a responsible and caring employer, we continue to support the workforce’s health and wellbeing, by ensuring we are able to communicate important information and be able to signpost people to support and resources as appropriate and receive feedback from staff on their feelings and experiences.”

The report states that Bolton Council, working with other Greater Manchester councils, have engaged in a collective procurement exercise to identify a suitable staff engagement system to complement their existing internal communication and support works they already undertake such as staff surveys, insight exchange and the council intranet pages.

The report says that following a market testing and procurement, a company called Stribe be engaged to provide the platform.

Stribe work with a number of local authorities and large organisations including Wigan Council, Barking and Dagenham Council, The Scottish FA and Barclays.

The system has an ‘employee voice’ feature for staff to raise concerns and for the council to provide direct feedback and has a resource hub, to help employees get access information at the right time and immediate signposting key support services.

The report outlines the cost of the system.

It states: “The cost of the implementing a staff engagement system is £1 per employee per month.

“We currently have a workforce of circa 3,400 staff within the council and a further 3,000 staff working within our schools therefore the approximate annual cost will be £76,800 per annum.

“The initial contract award period is for two years, however, to ensure Bolton Council maximises the benefits of the system, it has been agreed that this will be extended to 28 months to enable the initial ‘set-up’ works to be completed.”

The leader of the council will decide whether to approve the paper at a meeting on Wednesday.