Web Review Wednesday

Encouraging staff to update their web content can take a disproportionate amount of an administrator’s time. By holding a review event you can increase participation while reducing the time spent chasing updates.

Holroyd’s situation

I work for Holroyd City Council, a small council in Western Sydney. It is my job to oversee and develop our internet and intranet presence. Much of my time is spent collecting information from other staff to create content that communicates Council’s services and plans to the public.

As a one-woman team I am unable to keep abreast of all current and future projects, and rely on staff to keep me informed. Officers have become used to providing information to go on the website but then often forget to update the page when details change or a project ends.

Sending out emails asking for staff to review their pages was not effective enough. Officers who liked working on the website would act quickly but their pages were rarely the ones that were languishing. Staff responsible for the information on the least-updated pages were the least likely to respond to requests.

Goals of Web Review Wednesday

All initiatives I had tried relied on staff doing web reviews at their own desk and own convenience, but it became clear that the web was always going to be the chore left till tomorrow. I began to think about ways to enthuse staff and inject some energy into the process while clearly defining the amount of time the review task would take.

Staff responded well to discussing issues face-to-face as opposed to via email and as most staff are yet to learn how to update the site themselves it reduced the amount of time spent on the task if I fixed the changes as they went. It became clear that reviewing needed a face-to-face component.

I also wanted to lighten the mood a bit, somehow make it a bit fun. I thought about ways to create an enjoyable atmosphere; music, food, other staff members. We have a computer training area that has eight computers. I decided to hold a review meeting there advertised more like an event, where staff could come and eat snacks while reading over their pages and having them updated instantly. I named it Web Review Wednesday and decided to hold it once a quarter to get a proper review calendar in place.

Setting it up

As there would need to be around twenty-five staff involved I decided to hold four meetings on one day. I tried to group staff with their friends or people in similar roles. Staff could see who they had been grouped with. I also let them know of the other meeting times in case they couldn’t attend their suggested one.

In the email sent out I was very explicit in the time that it would take: fifteen or so minutes if people read the pages before coming, an hour at most if they didn’t. It was also said that if they could not come right on the hour that coming half-way through would be fine; this was to reduce the number of staff who, being late due to a phone call or other distraction, then chose not to attend.

I wanted staff to review old content rather than hatch new pages that wouldn’t be reviewed either. Problems that would take a long time to untangle would be marked down for a one-on-one meeting later.

Several staff were unable to attend; I made separate appointments with them prior to the Wednesday so it was clear the review was still going to occur.

On the day

I turned all the computers on prior to people arriving so they could just walk in and get started. I wasn’t able to have music playing but I did provide chocolate biscuits and mixed nuts as well as coffee and tea. I made sure that each meeting had its own supply so that the afternoon meetings were not getting leftovers.

When people began to arrive they took a snack and sat down at a computer. I repeated the goal of the review and what the staff member needed to do as they got comfortable and offered all the support that I could, including clarifying what was meant by ‘review’.

Participants spent on average twenty minutes in the room. The majority of changes were to times, dates, fees and phone numbers. These were all changed immediately, which staff liked because they could see their changes done in real time and left feeling like the task was complete until the next review.

Some staff needed to go back to their desk for more information to make corrections. In these cases they were generally emailed to me later that day.

When the review of a page or group of pages was complete the person responsible signed an attendance sheet. This provided evidence of who reviewed pages and added a sense of importance and responsibility to the exercise as well as a clear indicator that they’d completed the task.

Positives of Web Review Wednesday

General attendance was very high and the amount of content reviewed in one day was more than had been done in the last six months. Previously pages would be reviewed randomly and it was hard to ever feel like the site was truly up-to-date. Having most work completed in one day was very gratifying because both myself and participants felt the achievement; the task was no longer endless!

Having many staff in the same room proved invaluable when it came to content that seemed to simultaneously belong to several sections and none, particularly in relation to engineering and planning (separate departments at Holroyd). These staff members found that though they were working in different areas they wanted to get the same message across. With no prompting from me staff began to work together on plans for improvement.

One manager had never actually looked at the website before and found that nearly every detail was incorrect. This staff member had been asked via email several times to look at the site but only his attendance at the event accomplished this. This manager was shocked by the inaccuracy and left the event determined to set a workflow in place to avoid this happening in the future.

One of the least tangible but very valuable outcomes of Web Review Wednesday was the amount of goodwill generated. Staff appreciated the simplification and concentration of the review task, and were happy that much could be fixed there on the spot. The fact that food was provided and that they could have a chat with the person next to them also cheered them. It was great to see staff feeling more positive about the website after the review.

Negatives of Web Review Wednesday

Some staff were hard to focus on the task of reviewing. Two staff members came in with huge restructuring plans that they insisted on talking about, causing other staff who had minor changes to wait. Next quarter I will outline more clearly the difference between reviewing and restructuring in the invitation.

One staff member was surprised by the presence of others as he had assumed it was a private meeting. I had taken for granted that staff would see that there were several invitees and had not been as explicit as I could have. This staff member was fine and as the next meeting will involve the same people the issue shouldn’t be repeated.

While the event did persuade some staff to become involved in the review process who had been previously difficult to engage, there was still one or two people who said they would come and then never showed on the day. The level of participation was high but not complete.

Outcome

I think that overall Web Review Wednesday was a success and something that could be tried in other councils. It addresses the problem of staff who lack time and motivation and reduces a process that could drag on for months or never be done, into a single day with a week of additional updates afterwards.

The biggest issue before and after Web Review Wednesday was the same: staff who avoid reviewing pages. Although not all staff came to the event most did and certainly the number of people who needed to be chased up personally was dramatically reduced. The problem has not been completely solved but it has been addressed and reduced to a manageable level.

Doing it yourself

The idea itself is very simple; get people together to review and update in real time in a relaxed environment. Apart from buying snacks it can be done with very little other cost. Having a computer training room makes things easy but if your council doesn’t have one then think about your library services or the number of laptops you could collect.

There are ways to extend the event feel, such as prizes, music and even decorations. If there are not many people to involve perhaps try a morning tea or lunch. The approach should be tailored to your council but I would encourage you to hold on to the relaxed/fun feel. That will help get them back the next time!

This isn’t the only way to increase participation in the review process, but if you are a one-person team it’s a simple low-cost approach to try.

Name: Rachel

Bio: Rachel Macdonald built her first website as a teenager in 1994 to share her short stories with the world. She has a double degree in Creative Writing/Information Studies and has been working on Local Government websites since 2006. Her specialities are turning Council-speak into accurate, informative, web-specific content and championing usability/accessibility issues. In her spare time she dreams about being fluent in Mandarin.