Calling for change: five internal factors driving change at the City

Our Acting CEO, Kaarina Phyland, shares some of what’s driving change internally at the City of Greater Geelong.?

Recently I shared five key external drivers that are putting pressure on local governments around the country to do things differently . This week I thought I’d talk about some of the internal drivers of change that the City of Greater Geelong is facing – and I’d love to hear what’s driving change within your organisation!?

All organisations have experienced rapid modernisation over the past few decades. However I’d argue that many local government organisations, being so intrinsically community-focused, have often sacrificed their own organisational progress in order to prioritise the community needs of the day.??

?At the City of Greater Geelong, we always put our community first – and I think that’s one of our greatest strengths. But right now, putting our community first is calling on us to do some internal work to improve and modernise our ways of working so that we can provide the service that our community expects.?

1.Technology?

Historically, we’ve tended to prioritise community service improvements outside of adapting to the latest technological upgrades – however our community today has significantly different expectations around service, including how we use modern tech as an enabler of great service.?

2. Sustainable operations?

While we?have returned?to a balanced budget, increasing construction and delivery costs (inflation, rising price of materials and labour, etc.) combined with an increased demand for our services?fuelled by population growth, is placing?financial?pressures on our organisation. A focus on how we’re going to be financially sustainable is essential now and into the future.

3. Working with significant change?

Our community has and is changing with massive population growth and changing demographics, which puts pressure on us to change our ways of working, strategy and culture. Some of the events over the last decade have created a lot of change, but made some of our people wary. COVID disruption in particular left many of our people feeling significant change fatigue and many hope for a period of stability and familiarity.??

?4. Balancing our asset investment?

Building new things for our community doesn’t just create upfront cost – it also requires lifetime asset maintenance. We have over $4b in current asset value, and while we invest in new community assets we also must carefully balance ongoing maintenance and renewal of existing assets.??

5. Data and security?

There’s so much opportunity to use better data and insights to inform our decision-making and services. But with privacy concerns, we must also prioritise investment in security to keep our communities’ information safe.?

Alongside the external factors, these internal drivers mean our entire organisation is thinking differently about how we work to serve our community now and in the future.?

We’ve had to consider everything: how we do our strategy and planning, how we run projects, how we make decisions, the kind of culture we want, how we engage our community – and soon, how we enhance our services for the future.?

?I’m pleased that we’ve been making great progress, and thankful that we have so many leaders and employees involved! Our next CEO has the opportunity to make a big impact. If this could be you, check out the job ad .?

?What’s driving change in your organisation??