Below is the latest news from the LOTI community, based on the activities we worked on during the week commencing 18 April.

Hosting Show and Tells 

On Thursday, we hosted a Show and Tell where Brent Council shared details of their newly developed ‘Plan your Pathway’ app which helps young people contribute to their Pathway Plans.  It was an opportunity to learn more about the functionality of the app and its benefits in helping young people and social workers work in collaboration to develop and track specific actions. For more information, please see the slides from the presentation or get in touch directly with Madeleine (Madeleine.Leathley@brent.gov.uk).

Trialling different hybrid working practices

Over the past six months, we’ve been reflecting on the changes to the world of work that have come about as a result of the COVID pandemic. With so much activity now taking place in remote or hybrid settings, all organisations need to be more mindful about how they get the best from their staff. Do check out the collection of guides created by LOTI’s Sam Nutt on this front, which cover everything from developing a more inclusive workplace, to how to run an effective hybrid meeting.

One measure we’re trialling in the LOTI team is to have one full meeting-free day per month. While replacing most in-person sessions with video calls has increased our productivity significantly, it’s all too easy to fall into days of back-to-back meetings. That’s not only exhausting, but also leaves little headspace for thinking big thoughts, producing quality pieces of writing, or simply clearing the to-do list. Last week we held the third of these “no-meetings” days and our early conclusion is that we want to keep them, and potentially even increase their frequency. We’d love to hear from you about measures you have tried to make remote and hybrid working more sustainable and effective, email us at contact@loti.london.

Coming up this week

This week, the team will be:

1. Planning and promoting upcoming LOTI events, for all the details visit our events page.
2. Running workshops with the London Environment Directors’ Group in advance of a major design sprint we’re holding in May to bring digital and data innovation to support London’s net-zero targets.
3. Meeting with our data science and data leader networks.

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