Helping Westminster City Council design and build a new Digital & Innovation Directorate from the ground up
For over six months, we have partnered with the team at Zebra People to build Westminster Council’s inaugural in-house digital team as part of our extensive digital transformation program. Their expertise has been invaluable in successfully filling nine UCD and Product roles, leading us to request their assistance in hiring five additional positions due to their exceptional results. Zebra People have played a vital role in building our digital product teams by sourcing and placing outstanding candidates. We are thrilled with the outcomes and eagerly anticipate our ongoing collaboration.
Scott Colfer, Head of Product at Westminster City Council
01
The Brief
Westminster City Council approached Zebra People to help build their first in-house digital department – a user-centred, multi-disciplinary team that would drive digital transformation across key areas of the council’s operations. The focus was on three key areas: improve how users locate council services, improve how users ask for and receive council services and also help colleagues with core tasks such as scheduling meetings and sharing knowledge. The challenge was to build fully fledged product teams from the ground up, hiring user researchers, UX designers, content designers, business analysts, product managers, cloud engineers and developers.
02
The Approach
Working closely with the Head of Product and his team we gained an in-depth understanding of all the roles, project details, key requirements, unique selling points and the nuances of the company culture; Zebra People used this targeted approach to create a diverse list of 80 candidates for each role; knowing the market was competitive meant the need to sell the benefit of working in local government versus central government was paramount. We then drew up diverse shortlists of six candidates for each role; three candidates were subsequently selected for each role, resulting in successful placements.
03
The Result
Eight roles were signed off initially and following successful results a further five roles were added, with more in the pipeline. At the time of writing, ten of the initial thirteen roles have been filled with interviews taking place for the remaining positions. After six months, 99 CVs sent, 56 interviews and ten placements we can point to a highly successful process which has had a measurable impact on Westminster Council’s digital platforms by aligning with their core values.
