I hope you had a good weekend or a good Easter break if you were able to have a longer period away from work. Hopefully you managed to catch your breath.
Like me, you may have regretted eating your body weight in chocolate eggs. I am now planning to double my daily step count to make up for it.
Leadership changes
I wanted to use this post to bring you up to date with some changes that I have made to our senior leadership structure.
Firstly, I want to pay tribute to Paul Smyth, our director of strategy and technical services who has decided to leave the business.
Paul is one of our longest serving Team Salix members and has been here since the earliest days.
He has witnessed the growth of the company from a small cohort of colleagues to the more than 190 we employ now, along with all the extra work we have taken on.
For many of you, Paul has been a constant at Salix, has expertly led his team and has played a significant role in our success and expansion.
I want to wish Paul all the best for the future. We are fortunate that we will have his company for a while yet. I know an appropriate send-off is being planned.
Paul’s decision to leave means there will be a change to the team that reports to him.
During June, ECT will become part of the delivery team and will be managed by Ian Rodger. It makes sense to bring both these functions together to ensure that accountability for our public sector scheme delivery is under one experienced director.
Paul and I had already discussed him taking on some additional responsibilities with more focus on technical excellence. It now makes sense to recruit to a new role to proactively share the learning from our operations internally and externally.
New director posts
Secondly, I have decided to create two new director posts.
The first will be the director of transformation and delivery excellence, who will be responsible for improving the governance of our project management, processes, procurement, commercial operations, and driving change. This director will be a focal point for servicing the needs of the department and will be working very closely with Simon Sharkey Woods. This newly created function will involve the centralisation of some roles which currently sit within teams, and new roles (subject to budget). Once the post holder is recruited, the executive team will discuss a transition plan.
The second is a new director of organisational design and people. Their focus will be the creation of our new operating model, supporting colleagues with the format of Salix’s on-going strategy, and to ensure the right people processes are in place to support our continued success and growth.
Carol Brown will continue as HR director and will report into this role.
My plan is to advertise both these roles internally initially, in recognition of the talent we have within our organisation.
Other EMT news
Since joining us at the end of February, Simon Sharkey Woods has been part of EMT as our director of information systems and I have asked Andy Carter to step up to director of communications and become a full EMT member.
Finally, I feel it is important for me to have a nominated deputy who can provide leadership cover when I am absent. This will not be a new role but rather an additional responsibility for an existing member of the executive management team. This will be advertised internally only in due course.
These structural changes will be underpinned by new team objectives, as well as established behavioural standards and competencies for the senior leadership.
There will also be clearer accountability for performance across the executive team, such as ensuring one person is responsible for the delivery of our core schemes.
To summarise, with immediate effect, this is the new membership of EMT:
- Me, Emma, chief executive
- Ian Rodger, director of delivery
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Simon Sharkey Woods, director of information systems
- Helen Powell, director of finance and resources
- Jonathan Edwards, director of housing
- Andy Carter, director of communications
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TBC, director of organisational design and people
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TBC, director of transformation and delivery excellence
Where the changes have an impact on reporting lines and team structures, these will be explained to the affected colleagues by their respective director.
In addition, there will be some changes in line management within existing team portfolios, which will be communicated to those affected in due course.
How we manage complaints
I have one outstanding consideration about how we handle complaints.
I believe we need a process that is independent from decision-making and Salix operations. It is also an area that is likely to grow in complexity. I am considering where this responsibility should sit in the existing portfolios. And, of course, we can expect the structure of the organisation to continue to evolve as we learn, grow and develop.
I will be pleased to tell you more about the new senior leadership structure at our scheduled Town Hall at 2pm this afternoon.
With best wishes and thanks for your continued hard work.
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