Resident Experience Target Operating Model Design
With the growing complexity of resident needs and a historic lack of investment, Islington’s front-door services were under increasing strain. As a result, in 2023 Islington reset its Resident Experience Transformation Programme to focus on delivering real, tangible front-door service improvements to meet the needs of residents. To support with this work, Islington commissioned 31ten to define the future resident experience operating model, develop the associated business case and roadmap, and approval of funding required for implementation.
The Role
Working with Islington, the 31ten team undertook a comprehensive approach, separated into three key phases to design the future operating model and deliver the associated business case. In each phase, we did the following:
Phase 1
- Undertook a range of resident interviews and mystery shopping across telephony and online channels to capture key opportunity areas and develop resident personas and journey maps.
- Interviewed a range of frontline officers and analysed available data and management information to create a cost-to-serve model of the current delivery operations.
- Engaged with five selected local authorities to research comparative resident experience approaches, strategies, structure, technology and operations.
- These findings informed an ‘initial findings and benchmarking’ report which analysed the resident research, learning from best practice and other local authorities and Islington’s current position, to support the development of a future operating model design and business case for delivery.
Phase 2
- The findings from Phase 1 were widely shared and tested with the resident experience project team and board.
- Using these insights, all services within the programme scope were engaged to explore the future resident experience model and discuss the specific challenges and opportunities identified relating to each service.
Phase 3
- The findings informed the development of a programme vision, design principles and future TOM design.
- This design informed the development of a strategic business case, alongside the operating model implementation plan and the next steps for the programme.
Key Outcomes
- Detailed analysis was undertaken between Islington and comparable local authorities to understand the difference in strategies and operational practice and how this can impact the resident experience.
- Islington has a deeper understanding of its residents’ feedback alongside the strengths, challenges and costs of current operating practices that will need to be addressed in the future model.
- A clear programme vision and design principles have been developed to provide strategic cohesion across all resident-facing transformation work across the Council.
- A set of evidence-based future operating model recommendations have been explored and tested with wider stakeholders.
- The team have developed practical and tangible next steps for Islington to progress the programme of work.
- The team have outlined how the implementation of the future model will realise both quantitative and qualitative benefits for the Council.
