Transcription of Employer video case study

Transport Scotland- Martin Polland

Coventry University- Susan Barnes

Filmed in 2020

Susan- Good afternoon Martin. Thank you for taking part in supporting our postgraduate students in this collaboration with Coventry University in partnership with CMI, Chartered Management Institute. So welcome. Slightly different times. Normally we'd be face to face, but it's lovely to see you none the less.

Martin- Thank you very much.

Susan- So the firstly it would help if you could start by telling us a little bit about who you are and the organisation you represent and what it does.

Martin- Good afternoon everyone. My name is Martin Polland. I currently work for Scottish government or the agency, one of the agencies within Scottish government called Transport Scotland. For those of you south of the border, it's very similar to the DFT or Highways England. Probably more a Highways England type approach that we have in Scotland here. I was approached through Sue through the Institute of Highway Engineers so I've been a member of the Institute of Highway Engineers for probably 21, 22 years and I becameSenior Vice President as of yesterday with... annual general meeting and due to take over as President in 2 years' time which is 1) an exciting time and 2), I'm going to be veryhonest, very terrifying time as well, so.

Susan- Well congratulations.

Martin- We'll see how I go. Thank you very much. My background is in, is in roads maintenance so I'm a Civil, aChartered Civil Engineer and predominately been involved now in utility work or, or predominately roads maintenance. So within Transport Scotland I look after the north of Scotland, north of Perth, all the way up to the very top of Scotland for the trunk road, looking after the structural maintenance, so that's the major resurfacing schemes that you've probably seen in your travels on the motorway network and also look after some major rock fall sloops stop stuffers restfully thankfully. We're involved in some major probably, I think we're up-spend of about 17 million up there doing works to try and mitigate the risk of rock falls from the, from the rock at the side of the road coming down onto the road networks so wide and very varied variety of works that I get involved in.

Susan- Yes excellent. Wow goodness me. So can you tell us a little bit about how your organisation is, is structured?

Martin- Absolutely yes. As I said, we're an agency of the Scottish government so effectively we report to Scottish ministers. Our role is to effect, to report to Scottish ministers. Transport Scotland is a very wide and varied transport portfolio so we include aviation, we include freight, canals, analytics, there's so many different, different departments within us. So I'll really speak about my role as such. My rolereports to the cabinet secretary which is currently Michael Matherson.

Susan- Wow.

Martin- So it comes down from there. So it comes down from cabinet secretary down to our chief executive down to a list of directors. I think there's currently 6 directors, or 5 directors, 6, sits under our chief exec and I report via a managerial team through to one director who is Hugh Gillies, he's my director. He's got quite, as you can imagine, a broad remit as well because we're covering the whole of Scotland, truck roadnetwork, we're looking at controlling the vehicles and cars, you know the cars situation we're dealing with now, we're looking at weather, we deal with winter maintenance now, which is one of my jobs as well, I forgot to add. So a huge remit across the whole of Scotland so that's how we're currently set up. So effectively we're feeding information to cabinet secretary to help them inform political decisions formove them forward as well.

Susan- Right yes. And that's a big part isn't it, getting the students to look at strategy particularly in leadership and management, that kind of thing so that's really useful. Thank you. So it may seem a little obvious but can you tell us about any current and potential future issues that your organisation is facing?

Martin- Ok obviously the situation we're in just now with the covid-19 situation has a dramatic impact on all aspects of life, UK, never mind world-wide you know, so the way, whatwe're currently doing just now, we're working from home, so the office has effectively been closed so that's brought its ownchallenges. Working from, getting everyone set up to work from home; IT facilities. I think we're trying to play catch up I think with IT and in fairness they're doing a pretty good job. So the challenges for us, we have that, that challenge of covid-19, so looking at my day job I'll sort cover the challenges we have; weather in Scotland. We do...

Susan- Of course.

Martin- We do experience some slight weathers in Scotland, some storms coming in. I always chuckles when I hear you've got a centimetre of snow south of the border and the place is ground to a stand-still and we're probably up to our knees in it, moving, but moving slowly may I add. Yes so the challenges, we've got that, weather, we've got fluctuating budgets as such as well. I'm absolutely certain moving forward that the financial situation that we're in just now won't be the same moving forward as well. What it's going to be I honestly don't know. I know we've been given extra moneys this year, capital moneys to try and re-kick, re-kickthe economy in Scotland, get things moving again as well, but clearly there's going to be some big challenges, not just for Scottish government but also for the national government to try and kick, funding for future years as well.

Susan- Yes indeed. Yes.

Martin- Yes. Other challenges, obviously I live in a politicalworld. We have political masters as such as well and we go through a regular, a regular changeover of political staff then as well. Thankfully for the last number of years, I've only been with Transport Scotland may I add for 18 months or so. So back to my previous role, it was almost like every 4 years, or 5 years we'd have a new raft of local councillors who'd come in and effectively what you're try doing is re-, I'm not saying re-educate, but re-feed the knowledge of your processes and procedures in place and then in 4 years down the line, if they were not successful in re-election, you were having to start that whole process again. So we developed a suite of information to try and help them and almost like, I don't like using the word 'idiots guide', but like a very basic guide of; this is what we do, this is how we do it and here's what helps inform your decisions on moving forward as well. Yes so there's always challenges and what we're doing,obviously challenges as well for delivering the work in Scotland because the trunk road work network moving between Edinburgh and Glasgow, for any bodies been between Edinburgh and Glasgow in peak times in the morning you virtually cannot move in the place, it's probably very similar to the M25 so it's actually delivering work can be a real problem as well. So we look at, we monitor traffic flows, we monitor peak traffic flows, we monitor tourist seasons and a lot of the work we do is done overnight now as well which can bring its own challenges from a health and safety point of view, but we try to mitigate the disruption to the travelling public as much as possible to try and keep things moving. There are times where you can't do that, but again we do good PR, we tweet, we Facebook, we do all that sort of stuff now we're involved as well.

Susan- Yes, thank you. That's really interesting. Thank you.

Martin- Yes.

Susan- So you touched on this a little bit in terms of how leadership directs the business, so how, with you and your colleagues, I don't want you to repeat yourself obviously, but just that sense of you know, you as leaders have an impact on the organisation, I know you have your political leaders, but just talk me through that a little bit in terms of how you steer though change.

Martin- Yes. Absolutely yes. So everything comes down from our chief exec to our director level, comes down though our bandings to C1's and C2's and goes through just like a grading structure for people. So our chief executive is very passionate and very, very, very up for, for staff involvement and that's one thing; if this is for students, if you ever become chief exec or something in the future you won't be a good chief exec if you don't take your people with you. You need to have your people with you at all times. Previous roles I've seen chief, probably chief executive level not engaging with staff at a lower level and it creates, it almost creates that buffer and a level of resentment from staff then as well. Whereas working where I'm now it's almost the flip opposite. It's very much engage down. You're encouraged to speak out. You're engaged to share ideas because that what's drive forwards. Not one person can drive the whole, the wholevehicle forward, you need everybody feeding that as well. Down to director level, our director now has a monthly get, sorry we did have a monthly get together. We're now doing it virtual and we call it BGTE, so it wasn't Britain's Got Talent,it's a breakfast get together.

Susan- I like that.

Martin- The first one always, the first one I went to I thought 'what is this going to be like?' so that you're given some fruit and bits and pieces. And what they do is they bring people in from various parts of the business to talk about what they're doing and from my point of view it gives me that from being siloed to be able to have that vision to look out to see what impact my works have on other parts of the business and also what impact they have on my part of the business so it was really, from knowledge sharing point of view and a getting to know people point of view, I find that absolutely fantastic. I find, I find that, that leadership very embracing and welcome them as well. Having been in leaderships before where they haven't been so embracing. Again due to, due to certain things, personalities can play a play and also workload can play a place as well, but I think taking the time to speak to your staff so again if any students ever make it to that level remember the people because you're nothing without your people with you.

Susan- That's absolutely true. Thank you. That's good to hear you say that because I often teach that in the classroom so thank you to hear it from someone with your experience and your position is really supportive. So how would you describe the culture of the business? Obviously you've said it's sort of political, but if you just talk us a little bit about that that would be helpful.

Martin- Yes the culture of the business, obviously we're led by political leaders, but I think it's quite an embracing culture that we do. It's a very open culture. As I said, you're, you'reencouraged to share your views with people. What we do as well, each of the staff, we have, we have a monthly get together with the staff as well, so the higher level get together, but the managers also have, have a, we call it one to one's with the staff as well. Very informal, very relaxed, often over a cup of coffee and I think you get the best out of people as well if you can have that, that to influence. It's almost like 'a how's things?', 'what are you finding challenging?', 'how can I help you'- type approach. So again that comes from the very top and all the way down and it feeds back up through again as well. And I honestly do, I can't say this enough, I find the culture really embracing and really, it's almost like a breath of fresh air; driven. You see that drive from the top and if you see someone cares about you from the top I think you give that wee bit more then as well. It really, really, really helps as well. Yes so it's a good culture we live in. We're encouraged, we're professional engineers, there's very few people within our organisation that are not chartered engineers.

Susan- Right.

Martin- So working at a certain level and you're trusted. So you may be sitting talking about, I don't know, football on a Monday morning for 5 minutes over a cup of coffee, but yourleaders, your direct line managers know that they're going to get the best out of you so don't be draconian. I've worked for people in the past who have said you need to be at your officefor 8 hours a day. No, no, no. If you can get 5 or 6 hours really good work out of somebody, rather than being sat at your desk for 8 and producing for 3 or 4 of them. So it's about trust as well. Trust your people. Listen to you people. Take judgement. Don't, don't think you everything is my view as well. So I think I enjoy the culture where I'm working in now. I think that probably portrays, comes across pretty strongly as well, you know. And I'm not being paid to say that may I add as well!

Susan- That's good. Yes it does make such a difference doesn't it? Like you say, because you're learning from so many different people from so many different levels and you're so right to listen to your people because you know in my day most managers knew most of the people's jobs or how to do them, but of course that's not the case anymore.

Martin- No.

Susan- So you've really got to have that element of trust. Brilliant. Thank you.

Martin- Definitely not and it's not, it's not as if you can't go to anyone in my organisation and ask what I call is a 'daft boy question'; the question you don't know, you think is a silly question. The only silly question is the question you don't ask.

Susan- Yes good point. Yes. Like that, yes. Thank you. So when change has occurred in your organisation how has it been approached?

Martin- Ok I'll talk about probably a previous role rather than current role, because change, it's changed just now because I'm only about 18 months in. So change in previous roles, it's usually driven... local government, driven from cash savings, efficiently savings over the years. I've seen a number of people in local government whose drop off, drop off, drop off over the years. Again I'm not getting political it'sjust statement of fact.

Susan- Yes.

Martin- So that changes often difficult to drive through as well. What, what we did in previous roles we'd sit down and discuss it, again take ideas from people and engage withunions as well. So my previous workload, work role had 3 different unions that were involved, I was involved in. So I would sit down and speak to unions about that and of course I think getting engagement from people early doors helps. Don't, don't try and spring surprises on them. Be honest and upfront. Yes there are some difficult decisions to make, but I think trying to make them together is very, very, very productive and I think if you try and do it the other way it can be very unproductive as well and you'll get more barriers put in your way as well. There's lots of things I've tried to introduce in the past as well that I've not managed to introduce, but again it's listening to people ideas, listening to their reasoning behind things and try and see if there's different solutions. You don't always know the answer. People around about you have the answer sometimes as well so you need to be open to ideas.

Part A: Developing a strategy to lead equality, diversity and inclusion Task 1 Create a presentation (10 key slides plus additional slides with supporting notes) for the manager in the case study on leading in the context of equality, diversity and inclusion in the organisation. The presentation must include the following: a. Using a relevant tool/technique/model for analysis, provide a critical evaluation of the issues the organisation is currently facing and how they might be resolved. b. Critical discussion of why equality, diversity and inclusion is important to the organisation, the individual and the team as an enabler of performance. c. Explain and analyse how a strategy for equality, diversity and inclusion strategy could be implemented for cultural change in the organisation. d. Critically evaluate and discuss how the leadership style impact

you.

Martin- You're very welcome and good luck to all the students.

Susan- Thank you. I'm sure they'll appreciate that.