What we’ve been up to

Celebrating International Women’s Day 

Last week, on International Women’s day, LOTI marked the occasion by having our first in-person meet-up with the women in our LOTI community. This was also an opportunity for those partaking in the LOTIxUPFRONT course to discuss their experience so far and the “aha moments” they have been sharing with people they know.

Meeting our LOTI members

On Wednesday, we held our monthly gathering for the main representatives of each LOTI member. Some of the items that were discussed include:

• Appointment of recruitment specialists Joanne Cumper (East Peninsula Training Company) and Lawrence Longstaff (CHR Solutions) who will now be on hand to provide expert advice on recruiting for hard-to-fill roles, writing better job descriptions and job ads, and conducting salary benchmarking. These initiatives run alongside LOTI’s new jobs board, which we’re using to promote open roles available across our membership.
• Jay updated members on our plans to hold a Net Zero design sprint this May. The sprint will bring together borough environment teams with their digital and data colleagues, plus experts from industry and academia to explore how digital, data and smart city approaches can support London’s climate goals.
• Sam shared details of six short guides he’s put together to help boroughs create more effective workplaces, covering topics from creating a healthy workplace to running better hybrid meetings, etc.

Sharing the March video in our LOTI Leadership Series

In this month’s LOTI Leadership Series video, Eddie interviews Dave Briggs, founder of SensibleTech, about the role of Council leaders to help digital thrive in their organisation. Dave explains why it is not just about leaders being digital themselves, but about supporting staff and the culture shift.

Throwback of the week: Assistive Technology 

Our work in the Assistive Technology (AT) is area is focused on supporting public sector staff to make evidence-based decisions about the role and effectiveness of different ATs, and to conduct their own AT trials in a way that furthers the collective knowledge of the whole LOTI community. Our resources include a research report, case study library, framework for design and evaluation and more!

This week among other things we’ll be:

• Hosting a Show and Tell with Helix Centre on Supporting Dementia Care
• Visiting Hounslow Council Offices
• Speaking about innovation in procurement at Infuse (Wales)

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