In this issue:
What's new?
The Link
Opportunities for all with our new sounding board.
Have you ever thought it would be quite good to share your project or an idea with a group of people for friendly feedback but didn’t quite know where to take it to? Perhaps The Link, our new council-wide sounding board, could help.
Made up of a group of colleagues from across services, roles and locations, The Link will be meeting 5 times per year to chat about any topics that you put forward, at any stage of development. Our first meeting in August will focus on climate change and we’ll be sharing our honest, objective thoughts and feelings on this and others that you are welcome to suggest,
And if you’d like to join the sounding board group, we welcome members from all services and locations.
The Spare Share – office items noticeboard
Do you have office chairs that are gathering dust? Maybe you need a new mouse?
The Spare Share is a new noticeboard where you can check to see if any office items are available from colleagues before ordering new.
Whether you’re looking to pass on a used desk, donate some spare stationery, or find a keyboard for homeworking, our new swap and exchange service can help. As we all look to do our bit to create a climate friendly Argyll and Bute, it’s a great way to keep useful items in circulation and out of landfill.
Reduce, reuse and recycle where you can by checking any surplus items you have and add them to the Spare Share.
Examples of what you can post
- Office furniture (desks, chairs, shelves)
- Tech equipment (keyboards, mice)
- Office supplies (notebooks, pens)
Please note – we ask you to use any items for the office/homeworking and not for personal use.
Coming up
#Myabsummer
The weather has taken a turn for the worst so that means summer is coming! We’re running a campaign over social media from the end of June. During the campaign, we’ll ask the public for their recommendations on activities and their favourite spots to visit in Argyll and Bute.
We’d love to share any photos you have. So if you have a favourite beach, dog walk, place to picnic, cycle or paddle, please send them to photos@argyll-bute.gov.uk
Congratulations
Well done to Fay Davidson, ASN Assistant for reaching your 25 years service with the council. What a fantastic achievement, thank you for all your hard work over the years.
Well done to everyone who took part in another successful council golf day. The weather was kind on the day, held at Dunaverty Golf Club in Kintyre on the May bank holiday. A total of 29 players took part.
Congratulations to the winning team:
Malcolm Cullen
William McAdam
Joe MacVicar
Alex MacVicar
Special mention to William who even got a hole in one to help the team to victory!
Donations of £232 from this year’s event went to Cowal’s Pink Ladies following a successful raffle and the winning team donating their winnings.
The Communications Team are finalists in this year’s PRCA Dare (Scotland) Awards for the Digital and Social Media Awards. The team worked with Roads and Infrastructure (RIS) to find a new voice to help promote recycling over the Christmas period – a time of high consumerism and lots of potential waste.
The campaign included a competition for children and young people to design posters, poems and songs to encourage more people to reduce, reuse and recycle in a way that would be positive, rather than preachy. Their entries were used on social media in the run up to Christmas and over the holiday period and attracted a great response.
The PRCA Dare Award winners are announced on 5 June.
A round of applause to our Housing Services Team who won the 2025 Innovation Award at this year’s Empty Homes Network Awards (EHN). The team was also highly commended in the EHN’s Meeting the Challenge Award and the Best Partnership Award. They won the Innovation Award for a project aimed at bringing properties back into use for Health and Social Care Partnership (HSCP) staff. You can read more about the award on our website.
Well done to everyone involved.
We’d love to feature your achievements. Get in touch via Cascade@argyll-bute.gov.uk
Connect for Success
Carving out time for busy teams to come together
For remote and hybrid workers with little time to spare in the working day it can be tricky to find time to get together with colleagues in your team or same area of work to share ideas or help with problem solving. This was something HROD recognised in their own team so looked at ways to help. Part of the solution has been a dedicated weekly 2-hour slot for the Organisational Development team to come together online to cover different rotating topics.
Here, Jennifer Coyle, Senior HR Business Partner shares some insight on what’s worked for them:
- This time is open to the whole team to join and scheduled in calendars months in advance. Each session is 2 hours with a break halfway through or when there is a change of topic.
- Focus time (Productivity Pod) – the team ‘work together’ online with a break half way through – great for when people need dedicated time in the diary to work on a specific task but also they have company and people to reach out to if any questions arise.
- Topic/issue workshop (Action Learning Set / Group Coaching) – anyone in the team can come along and present a challenge or something they’re working on and would like ideas or support from the wider team. Informal and great for supporting collaboration.
- Team development session – can be used for professional development activities, or other topics / themes eg how does each Connect for Success theme fit your activities? Brings connection to the organisation.
- Knowledge sharing session – where team members can share learning or insight they have gained that would benefit the whole team – cascading learning and knowledge.
- At first there was some hesitation about how it would work and people were a bit unsure of the benefits but now it’s seen as a really positive part of the week and everyone tries to attend. The Productivity Pods are particularly useful in completing activities in focus time or finding common collaboration time with other team members.
It’s been a small but impactful change to the OD team’s weekly working life and perhaps something similar could work for your team? If you’d like to find out a bit more about this then get in touch with Jennifer Jennifer.Coyle@argyll-bute.gov.uk
Newsflashes from May
Training and useful resources
Webinar bookings on LEON
We offer a growing selection of webinars on LEON that are available to book for Argyll and Bute Council employees.
Simply log into LEON, go to find Learning and look for the courses with the orange webinar banner.
Next click on to the course, enrol on it and browse the course information and dates.
Once you have decided you want to book on to a particular date, please click “go to event” and then click “request approval”
This will send an automated message to your manager to alert them of a booking request on LEON.
When you request a place on a webinar, your booking will only be confirmed once it has been approved by your manager. This ensures that all learning activities are aligned with team goals and work schedules. If you’re planning to attend a session, please make sure to speak with your manager in advance to avoid delays.
Once your manager has approved the request, your place will be secured and you’ll receive a confirmation email to let you know your booking is complete. Should the course be fully booked at this point you will be placed on a waitlist.
Courses organised by the Education Service do not require manager approval.
Top tips for booking on LEON
You can only change a booking date by going into the event you have booked and cancel it before booking onto a new date. Manager approval is needed for the new booking.
Enrolling to a webinar page does not mean you are booked on to the event. You will need to select a date and request the booking.
Stay tuned for more updates and happy learning!
Digital accessibility – and why it matters
When we talk about web accessibility, we usually think of it as a way to support people with disabilities. While that’s absolutely essential, the benefits can go much further than that.
Ensuring accessibility doesn’t just make our website more inclusive; it also improves the experience for all users, regardless of their needs or abilities and makes digital content more flexible, user-friendly, and enjoyable for everyone..
Accessibility guidelines encourage the use of high-contrast text, legible fonts, and resizable layouts. This makes content easier to read for people with visual impairments or dyslexia, but also for anyone using a mobile device in bright sunlight or reading late at night.
Subtitles and transcripts are also great examples or how accessibility tools benefit everyone. Subtitles are essential for users who are hearing impaired, but they’re also incredibly useful in noisy environments like public transport, or when watching videos without sound.
Accessible navigation such as larger buttons or links and a responsive design make a big difference. While they are very helpful for users with motor impairments, they can also help anyone trying to tap a tiny button on a phone screen.
There is now training on LEON to help you learn the basics of digital accessibility and why it is so important to make sure all our content meets legal accessible standards. I’d urge you to have a look – it only takes about 20 minutes and it makes a big difference to users.
Lorne MacBrayne, Digital Engagement Services Manager
Get involved
Are you 55 or over? Share your thoughts on work flexibility
In our most recent Strategic Workforce Planning Priorities we made the commitment to get feedback from employees who are aged 55 and over to get a better understanding of the type of flexibility that is important to them. Feedback will help us ensure that we can consider flexibility options that meet the needs of all employees, including those who are at different life stages.
If you are in the 55 and over age group, we would love to hear your feedback. Please click the link below to find out more and complete the anonymous feedback survey, which should take 5-10 minutes to complete.
The survey closed on Friday 20 June 2025.
We really appreciate your time and feedback,
The HROD Team
Good to know
A pain in the…
There are loads of benefits to flexible working but one of the drawbacks is that we might not necessarily move around as much compared to when we’re in the office. It’s all too easy to sit for long periods and adopt bad habits when it comes to posture (speaking personally!). All this can lead to the inevitable strains, aches and pains.
Help is literally at hand as I discovered recently. Faced with a long wait to see chiropractors/physios and osteopaths, I remembered as part of our employee benefit scheme, we have access to the Help@Hand app.
Here you’ll find lots of great resources including financial, legal health and wellbeing. In my case, I looked at the physio section and arranged a free consultation the next day. After speaking with the physiotherapist, they sent over twelve exercises to help my back, complete with video demos. They’ve helped massively so I would highly recommend if you’ve experiencing any issues.
The bad posture is still a work in progress though..
Ruth Crosbie, Senior Communications Officer