Building walls for a positive working environment
My mantra is to smash through walls rather than climbing over them — but that is when they are obstacles to progress.
At Citizens Advice Wokingham, we build them.
I always think it is important to remind people what the Citizens Advice service exists for. Essentially — we help people overcome their problems by equipping them with advice and information.
We help individuals understand their rights, possible next steps, unpick their problems and figure a way forward. All through our free, confidential and independent services.
We face the same problems of the wider charity and voluntary sector — decreased funds, more competition for the same funding pots, an increase in demand on services and working hard to manage a charity with limited paid staff resource.
This means we have to be ahead of the game, not be complacent as an organisation and find new ways of working — embracing change.
For me — it has been really important to recognise the fantastic contribution all of our staff and volunteers make to our charity. My colleagues will tell you that I often point out that every contribution to our charity drives us forward, whether that be an adviser with a client, or our bookkeeper who helps us keep on track of our spend.
All of our team — our cleaner, communications volunteer, admin support, supervisors, training, management and adviser roles are great assets to our team.
I wanted this to come across to the team, our funders and other visitors to the offices. I write personal letters, emails and face-to-face thank yous and recognition of contribution throughout the year. But there was something missing.
So we started to build a wall.
This wall is at the end of our main back office.
We encourage staff and volunteers to write on a ‘brick’ and stick it to the wall when they feel they have made a difference.
That difference could be to a client, to a colleague or for the organisation. And if they do not recognise it — we will run after them with a piece of paper and a sharpie!
Some examples are:
“This attitude of optimism and encouragement within the office has helped me massively grow in confidence” — Student Volunteer
“Achieved £90,000 settlement for client who was clinically depressed due to action of his employer” — Volunteer Employment Adviser
“I helped one of our disabled volunteers get an award for a course on supported employment by providing her with a regular volunteering slot at our office.” — Office Assistant
Through this wall — I hope that any time a colleague is having a challenging day or has some doubt, they have a visual reminder of all of the great work they and their friends and colleagues do — day in, day out.
Feedback and personal observation has found that people will spend a couple of minutes walking up to the wall and reading the submissions.
This led us on to a wall-fest!
Every client interaction, we collect feedback. We do this as a funding requirement for one of our projects, and review it regularly. We receive some fantastic comments.
We had just painted our reception area to make it more colourful and inviting, and had a spare wall! So we launched our next wall.
This wall highlights feedback from our clients. It is genuine feedback, written on our feedback forms within the last 9 months in the “other comments” box. We type this up to attach to our funding report.
By putting it up on our reception wall we hope that it will instil confidence in our clients and visitors that we provide effective and meaningful services, respect and appreciate feedback and take pride in our work.
Some of the comments include:
“I’m leaving happier than when I arrived. Thank you.”
“Excellent compassionate adviser. Feel much more in control and reassured.”
“A life saver. I was so desperate. I needed so much help.”
“All of the people I came into contact with were extremely friendly and helpful. I’m glad I visited CAB”
And we are delighted! We will continue building on our walls.
Our visitors, funders and guests have been really impressed by the walls. With some heading back to their offices to create their own version.
They are a great visual prompt of the wonderful contribution our teams make and a great talking point. Long may it continue!
