2020 12 23 — Weeknotes
2.48 — the final weeknotes of 2020…No words to describe how proud I am of the team…
Well what a year that has been, probably the biggest understatement ever.
It continues to be busy right to the end of 2020.
We are recruiting at the moment — still time to have a look at the roles we have available — https://hounslow.digital/careers/. Last week we ran a recruitment fair to open our virtual doors to those thinking of coming to work for us. We ran a few sessions over a few hours and have some great questions and interest in the roles. These role close on 3 January so still time and if you have any questions do let me know. It really is a great time to be joining us with so much amazing work and transformation over the next few years.
I attended a session with UK Authority on Thursday evening with the theme — “2020 was ‘unprecedented’, but what have we learnt that will make our services and efficiency better in 2021?”. This was the first session that I was able to attend with them having not been able to attend the last couple I have been invited to. It was an excellent session and great to see colleagues from across the Country coming together to share their experiences — there are a number of things that I will take from the session. One of the main things is how important personal resilience is at this time, lots of other councils having an increased focus on wellbeing and mental health — which is really important and was interesting to hear the different approaches.
It is also really easy to fall in the trap of 2020 being a really bad year and being negative, which of course it was certainly a very different year. Now I am a glass half full person anyway but so many positives have and are coming from this year that we really need to embrace and drive forward in the future.
We had the Hounslow Leadership Group on Thursday where we spent a bit of time thinking on how well the virtual Leadership Group meetings have gone over the past 9 months. Colleagues feel more engaged and involved with the virtual meetings than they were previously — which is great to hear. Looking forward to these sessions going from strength to strength in 2021 — I have been continuing to host them and really enjoy being part of the organisational development / change side of things.
On Tuesday of this week we had an end of year gathering / virtual Christmas party with the Digital team to celebrate the year and a chance for us to get together to think about the last 12 months and everything we have achieved. Was actually a really emotional evening. We got everyone to write their positive word and the word cloud below is the result. Very clearly collaboration came out on top (with toilet roll, netflix, it’s ending and wine also making an appearance)…
But even up to the last minutes of the year we are still continuing to support the organisation in the response to the pandemic. This is going to continue over the festive period as well as we are involved in the set up of the vaccination and the lateral flow testing sites.
I am incredibly proud of what we have achieved as a team and an organisation over the past year. And as I said to the team last night at our virtual party there are no words that can describe how I feel with everything we have done, how we have pulled together, how we have delivered! As one of the team described it last night — we kept the council going… we really did! Often when we ourselves were running on empty… we kept going… And continue to do so as well…
Another great quote from last night is:
To achieve something with others is better than achieving it by yourself…
Not only have we enabled the council to respond to the pandemic; we have kept the day to day activities going; we have kept the lights on; we have delivered multiple projects; we have progressed the council transformation programme; we have an approved digital strategy; we have a reshaped team and recruiting to roles; we have transferred a leisure service back to the council and the list continues….
There are no words to describe how proud I am…
Wishing you all a very happy and safe festive period. Normal weeknotes service will resume
Weeknotes — Kylie Minogue — Christmas wrapping
