As part of their ambitious “Let’s Do It!’ strategy, they explored ways to drive efficiencies, work smarter and build digital skills to deliver better services for the people of Bury.
Bury Council understood that they needed to nurture a workforce who could adopt digital skills at pace if they were to maximise the benefits of current and emerging technologies.
Together, Bury Council and The Inform Team developed a successful Microsoft 365 champions programme, delivered training to all staff groups, and tracked key metrics support their journey towards digital maturity.
The numbers speak for themselves
18
month programme.
950+
staff trained in Microsoft 365.
9.3/10
average satisfaction rating for training sessions.
71%
increase in digital skills.
The starting point
A post-pandemic tech review
Bury Council had rolled out Microsoft Teams to its employees in 2020 during their emergency Covid response. After the pandemic, Bury continued a hybrid working model and recognised that there was still untapped potential within Microsoft 365 that could transform the way their workforce could communicate and collaborate.
Many Teams users had only used the app for video calls or chats, and shared files were largely stored on individual devices or network drives – with multiple versions circulating via email.
The team at Bury knew that their previous plug and play approach wasn’t enough to create the agile workforce they aspired to as part of their long-term strategy.
“
I think certainly following the Covid lockdowns, more people were working remotely and almost being thrust into using technology that they weren’t really familiar with. Things like Teams were brought online really quickly, and they’ve worked brilliantly. But I’m not sure that everybody had the right level of training [in 2020] to be able to use them to the best effect.
”
Tina Bruce
Microsoft 365 champion
“
During Covid, we rapidly delivered lots of new technology and devices across our organisation. However, due to the speed of deployment, we recognised that we’d not provided enough wrap-around digital training or support to really adopt and maximise our technology capabilities.
”
Liam Johnson
Head of Organisational Development and Culture
Bury set out to find a training partner to support their workforce with digital skills, and started working with The Inform Team in February 2022.
The action plan
Working with key stakeholders in Bury Council, we developed an action plan to upskill staff on the Microsoft 365 suite, while building a framework for sustainable skills development in the future.
Creating Microsoft 365 champions
We identified, engaged and upskilled a team of M365 advocates to share hints, tips and enthusiasm for new ways of working across office-based and frontline staff.
Training for staff at every level
We developed a bespoke training programme for all members of staff, covering smarter meetings, better collaboration, wellbeing, inclusion and productivity, and Microsoft 365 basics.
Building a digital maturity roadmap
We used our unique digital maturity assessment to establish a baseline of how Bury Council had adopted M365 tools and identified areas to boost efficiency and improve ROI.
“
I think there’s a propensity sometimes in the public sector to play very safe and wait for technologies to come to you. And I think if we’re going to make the real changes that we need in the public services that we’re delivering to people, then we need to be on the cutting edge of these things.
”
Andrew Carter
Assistant Director of Digital, Data and Technology
The Microsoft 365 champions programme
Cascading confidence throughout the council
The M365 champions are a volunteer group across Bury Council, from IT to social work to the street team. They received extra training on Microsoft 365 tools like Planner, OneNote, and SharePoint.
Over the 18-month programme, the champions have grown in confidence and skill, cascading their knowledge within their immediate teams and across the council.
Ewa, a Systems Manager and M365 champion in the Finance department successfully encouraged a hesitant colleague to embrace OneDrive, SharePoint and OneNote:
“She was reluctant at first,” said Ewa. “But now she absolutely loves it, and she’s a champion showing other people how to use OneDrive and OneNote for storing stuff. So that’s been really helpful.”
“
I’m an M365 champion. We don’t go around wearing a big badge or anything – but colleagues know that they can come to us if they need a bit of support or if they want to know how to do anything. We also share tips and ideas amongst ourselves. I’ve really enjoyed it. It’s helped me both personally and professionally.
”
Tina Bruce
Microsoft 365 champion
This engaged volunteer team also supports digital initiatives. During training, Bury Council introduced a new email retention policy, requiring action from all staff. The M365 champions played a key role in its implementation, helping their teams adopt the process smoothly.
Andrew Carter, Assistant Director of Digital, Data and Technology is confident that the champions will have a similar part to play in future plans, including the roll-out of AI tools when the time is right:
“We know we’ve got a staff group who can take these technologies forward,” he explained. “We’ve got a structure there that we can use to leverage, and it doesn’t need to be driven solely by the digital team.”
“
It’s been really nice to see some of our staff grow and engage throughout the whole programme. It’s not just about upskilling, it’s about having the confidence to share with their colleagues as well as the skills that they’ve learned.
”
Liam Johnson
Head of Organisational Development and Culture
The all-staff training
Building a foundation of digital skills
The all-staff training program gave users a chance to learn Microsoft 365 basics and how digital tools could enhance ways of working.
These training courses included: M365 basics, smarter meetings, well-being, inclusion and productivity, better collaboration, finding information and mobile working.
Delivered live via Teams in small groups, sessions were flexible and interactive, led by expert trainers and encouraging hands-on learning.
To maximise participation and return on investment, Inform’s communications specialists and in-house creative agency worked alongside Bury’s internal communications team to develop six campaigns to raise awareness and drive engagement.
“Having an engaged workforce on this is essential,” said Liam. “It’s been really nice to be working with Inform who’ve really supported our communications and engagement materials. We wanted people to attend the sessions and to learn new skills to drive innovation going forward.”
By the end of the training programme, the average session was rated by participants as 9.3 out of 10. 87% of users were able to apply their learning directly to their job role, with a 71% increase in skills and knowledge.
The digital maturity assessment
A data-driven approach to technology adoption
It’s often difficult to measure the success of a technology adoption programme, especially across a large workforce like Bury Council’s. To respond to this challenge, Inform has developed a framework for measuring digital maturity – how far an organisation has adopted digital tools, highlighting successes and areas of untapped potential.
We applied this framework to the data behind Bury Council’s Microsoft 365 tenant to benchmark their journey throughout the programme. We assessed digital maturity three times: once at the start of the programme to establish a baseline, once after six months to measure progress, and again at the end of the programme to identify next steps.
“The maturity assessments have been really useful,” said Liam. “It’s highlighted areas that we need to focus on and start to shape additional support. When we started, we had a low uptake on some of our M365 platforms. We’re now seeing that grow month by month.”
Bury Council’s digital maturity has grown throughout the programme, from an initial baseline in phase one of technology adoption, right through to phase two (optimise) and phase three (empower). Each report provides a list of actionable recommendations and metrics to inform future strategy and demonstrate ROI.
“
It’s been a success. We’re now an organisation that’s got people with the level of skill to complement their passion for digital and working in new ways. And who are supporting that change within their services.
”
Sam McVaigh
Director of People and Inclusion
The future
Next steps for a sustainable digital future at Bury Council
Throughout this project, we’ve seen a real acceleration in digital skill, confidence and ambition. Bury Council have laid the foundations for a digitally mature organisation and have nurtured a workforce who understand the benefits that digital tools can bring.
Right now, Bury are working to further embed M365, including introducing a SharePoint-powered intranet site and are exploring the potential of process automation and AI powered tools such as Microsoft Copilot for future implementation.
While they face the same challenges and pressures that many local government organisations experience, Bury Council have a clear vision for what they want to achieve and have mapped out a route to get there.
“
We can talk about things like Copilot and things that are further in the advanced skill set without too much fear that we’ve not got those first few steps to go through with people.
”
Andrew Carter
Assistant Director of Digital, Data and Technology
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