From the Town
Town staff itself is ‘renovated’
It may sound crazy, but I think the staff has been renovated along with Town Hall. When you take people out of private offices and mash them into rows of cubicles or small offices with coworkers, it creates a strange cocktail of personalities.
For instance, the Communications and Tourism staffs, a talkative group of creatives, have been working elbow-to-elbow with the Finance team. I have no doubt that our staff accountant and accounting technician know more about Instagram reels than they ever wanted to know.
In the same way, codes inspectors, administrators, planners and engineers all worked within earshot of each other’s phone calls at the temporary annex behind the community center. If they didn’t understand the role of other departments before, they do now.
That’s been the beautiful thing about this little hiatus from normal. Michelle Pence, Town of Farragut Human Relations director, has long had the goal of inter-departmental relationships among the staff.
She knows that it helps morale when all employees can see the big picture of operating the Town rather than being focused on the work of one department.
Working in a silo reduces productivity and creates a fragmented workplace culture.
Town administrator David Smoak is one of the staff members who could hear all annex activity from his desk.
“It’s been a great social experiment for people who don’t normally interact to get to know each other in a way that doesn’t happen in a traditional office space,” he said.
“The challenge is to figure out how to keep these new relationships going.”
A couple of weeks ago, several staff members enjoyed an impromptu lunch of food left over from a community center event. I was struck by how much mingling between departments took place.
Staff from multiple departments were seated together at most, if not all, tables. At previous staff events like the fall picnic and holiday party, departments generally stuck together.
I think we’ll maintain these new relationships when Town Hall reopens. The redesigned office space will allow Finance, Communications, IT, Community Development and Engineering teams to easily interact with each other.
There are multiple small and large meeting areas throughout our upstairs space that will enable us to work more collaboratively. The new layout, paired with better working relationships, should increase both efficiency and morale.
As much as we’ve enjoyed our compulsory camaraderie, it will be good to have office doors again. We’re very much looking forward to getting back to Town Hall.
“Overall, everybody had a positive outlook, but I think they’re ready to have their own space again,” Smoak said.
We look forward to serving the community from Farragut Town Hall starting Monday, April 21.
