Clients / Case study

Working in partnership with Serco

How do you create an environment of trust between new matrix partners?

The brief

Following the shift in the delivery of Adult Social Care from local authority to an external provider, we were asked to help to develop the new matrix leadership team than spanned both organisations. Our challenge was to ensure strong relationships across the whole extended team with people working effectively together as equal partners to deliver the best possible result, as well as providing an effective service.

The challenges

With Serco and the local authority working in partnership, most of the local authority staff had successfully transitioned across to their new employer but there were areas where both performance and behaviour needed to be reviewed openly and discussed further. Many of people now working with Serco had spent several years working in a local authority and were taking time to adjust to the new working environment and culture. By developing a strong and effective matrix leadership team, they hoped this would encourage people to achieve a more open culture by role modelling the behaviours they wanted to see more consistently.

The solutions

Through a programme of senior leadership team development sessions, we worked together to help everyone understand and embrace the future vision, encouraging the whole team to work together more effectively in a relationship of trust. Sharing open feedback played a significant part of the programme and while challenging, proved to be a real catalyst for change.

The results

Feedback showed clearly that through this ongoing programme we were able to help this newly formed leadership team work together to address challenges, but also to grow and develop. In doing this, we are confident we played a significant part in developing greater clarity of the role of the Serco led Adult Social Care team within the Council and in moving the group forward to deliver the high quality service required for the future.