The Service public de Wallonie (SPW) is divided into seven entities, which provide public services in several sectors such as environment, taxation, housing, energy and mobility, and is located in 136 local authorities in Wallonia. It is a highly diversified administration in terms of competences but also in terms of employee’s profiles. There are employees from different generations, grades and work profile (in the field, administrative, etc.).
SPW corporate culture is based on an administrative contract (le contrat dˈadministration). This contract is a strategic road map between the administration and the Walloon government. It contains Wallonia and SPW main issues, transformed into five-year objectives. These objectives concern cross-disciplinary and more specific competences (housing, environment, etc.); five years was chosen because it relates to the duration of the general directors’ mandate.
In 2019, roadshows in different Wallonia cities between SPW general directors (strategic committee) and the employees were organised to present the future of the administration, ‘Vision 2030’. This vision is based on the first administration contract evaluation which contained some recommendations. At this time, a promise was made to involve employees in the 2020–2025 administrative contract build-up. A total of 988 people took part in these roadshows; we recorded one and posted it on the Intranet so we could reach around 1300 employees.
We showed a great sense of agility in 2020, when the Covid-19 pandemic broke out. We suggested sharing our ideas for the administration’s future to generate sustainable results, bring confidence between employees and the administration, and improve our quality of services. We did this by setting up a major participative dynamic, and by organising a participative online platform and virtual working groups.
In concrete terms, six virtual working groups were organised in September and October 2020: ‘Les rendez-vous du contrat dˈadministration 2020–2025’. In the morning, we asked participants (in small groups) to talk about what lessons we should retain from the health crisis. In the afternoon, they were also divided in smaller groups with a team leader (as a ‘World Café’) and could suggest ideas among 11 subjects including human resources, service users, internal and external organisation, digital, working and learning, and starting a business (chosen during their application).They were also asked if they wanted to change the administrative contract objectives wording. At the end of the allocated time, the team leader encoded the favourite idea on the digital platform. Participants were then invited to join their second and last working group to do the same, in a true collective intelligence experience. Employees could also suggest individual ideas on the platform, which was possible until the end of October; then came the voting phase over 12 days. Employees were able to vote for their favourite ideas. There were three possibilities to give an opinion: ‘I support’, ‘I don’t support’ and ‘I have mixed feelings’. These votes helped us to sort proposals to give an answer to all of them (from the strategic committee and other SPW services).
We did not forget the non-connected employees (those who do not need a PC to work). We sent a letter at their home asking them to meet us in person, and organised the same activities over a half day.
Concerning the governance, here is the SPW project management operating: there was a steering committee for decisions, facilitation, validation and strategic vision. A project team of six people including the project manager to operationalise actions and for project management. We organised meetings every four days. Collaborators to give us advice but also to guide and provide support to the teamwork. We arranged meetings every week with them.