On Thursday 6 October, the Digital Change Team and How We Work Group are hosting a Yam Jam for staff to share their thoughts and feelings about how they see us all working in future. A Yam Jam is a live Q and A session hosted on Yammer. The teams will post a few questions to kick start the session but all thoughts, feelings and questions are welcome. There are no right or wrong answers, the Yam Jam is your space to talk and connect. In the week leading up to the event the teams will be sharing posts on Yammer with things to read, see and do to get you thinking about agile working, before the live event begins at midday in the How We Work Yammer community.

If you'd like to learn more about Yam Jams then check out this article from Microsoft about How-To YamJam.

Over the last few years, DCC’s usage of data has skyrocketed. As an organisation we are regularly consuming almost 7 terabytes (TB) of data a month; an increase from the very steady 4TB a month we were using until two years ago.

Our Finance and the Digital and Technology Service is making changes to our contracts and will be working with services to identify ways to reduce usage.

They are also looking at ways to make better use of pre-loved DCC mobile phones, and improving how requests for new ones are managed.

The annual generator test at County Hall will take place on Wednesday 5 October. The test will take place during working hours from 9:30am to 3:30pm under normal working conditions. At the beginning of the test there will be a brief power cut of about one minute. Once the generators have started, power will be restored to the main part of the site.

Over the past four months, Smarter Devon, in partnership with Public Health Devon, has been running a series of interactive seminars to help us understand all the issues we need to consider as we develop our own data ethics principles and rules.

We have learned a lot through these seminars, and we now want to bring everything together in a final conference. Join Smarter Devon at Coaver Club, County Hall on Wednesday 28 September.

Workflow tasks, such as the authorisation of time sheets, are automatically delivered to your To-Do-List for you to action by a due date.

If you're going to be away from work for a period of time, then you will need to redirect your tasks. Details of how do do this can be found on page 24 in the iTrent guidance.

If you are due to take jury service leave, you should inform your manager, and provide them with a Loss of Earnings form which will be supplied by the court. Your manager should then enter an open ended absence based on expected jury service dates. You will receive notification that the jury service absence has been entered.

Now that many of us have meetings through Microsoft Teams, it can sometimes seem difficult to work together on one project but it doesn’t have to be. You can still annotate documents and conduct analysis in your Teams meeting, thanks to Microsoft Whiteboard. On Tuesday 27 September the Digital Change Team will show you how it can transform your meetings.

Don't forget about our Kaarp Benefits Staff Benefits scheme which could help you to make savings on everyday items.

Login to Kaarp with the username DEVON and password BENEFITS

The Short Breaks Project is working to improve the short breaks offer for disabled children and their families. And as part of this work, we are working alongside Parent Carer Forum Devon to host a series of coffee mornings so that parents and carers can talk directly to us about their experiences of the service.

Several sessions, primarily aimed at parents and carers, will be taking place between now and Christmas. If you support any parents and carers who use the short breaks service, please make them aware of these sessions.

One Devon is creating a network of empowered colleagues to help themselves and those around them navigate the current challenges, promote wellbeing and increase resilience. Now is your chance to participate in a free 10-week clinical psychologist-led wellbeing programme. 

• Come along to the the Windrush in Devon Caribbean Cricket Festival on Saturday 24 September at Exmouth Cricket Club.
• Amber Johnson has some great PowerPoint hacks to share with you this week to in Let's get digital!
• Take a look at the latest internal positions and secondments.