Coronavirus: Thousands of council staff deliver vital services from home

Just some of the 2,500 Shropshire Council staff (plus pets!) who are working at home every day.

During the coronavirus pandemic more than 2,500 Shropshire Council staff are working from home every day to deliver key services to Shropshire residents and businesses.

Andy Begley, acting interim chief executive, explains:

“Since the start of the lockdown we’ve had more than 2,500 staff from a wide range of service areas working at home, including our customer service team, IT staff, planning officers, finance colleagues, our legal team, social care staff – to name just a few – and, of course, our directors and chief executives. As you can see in the photo, I’m working from my new work station at home.

Andy Begley, acting interim chief executive, working at home

“Everyone has very quickly had to get used to a new way of working, to not going into the office, and to not seeing colleagues on a daily basis – and we’ve all quickly become accustomed to holding virtual meetings. It’s not always easy, but everyone has adapted brilliantly, meaning we’ve been able to continue providing services to the people of Shropshire, just from different locations.

“As well as the commitment of our staff, key to this has been having the technology to make it possible for such a large number of people to work from home at the same time.

“Over the past few years we’ve invested in technology that allows us to work from anywhere. The logic of this pre-coronavirus was to give our staff flexibility, putting them where the work is, to improve services, save time and money. With the current situation, we have been able to increase capacity and add additional features to the range of tech available.

“Essentially, we had a really solid foundation in terms of technology, and we’ve been able to build new and improved solutions at pace; allowing us to focus on supporting the people and businesses of Shropshire as the solutions to communicate, collaborate and manage data were already established.”

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