Moving from an organisation working outside government, there are some obvious differences in ways of working – as “you’ve got political oversight” in the civil service – but an unexpected difference Goodall picked up on was that the civil service “was a bit quieter about the pride it has for the role it plays”. He says he became acutely aware of this during the COVID-19 pandemic and he hopes he was able to convey the work the Welsh Government was doing.

“I thought the civil service should be very proud of everything that we did at that time,” he says. “Because it was a real chance to show that we were doing things for the people of Wales.”

While the pandemic may have made the work of Welsh Government more visible to the public, it also had a profound impact on the way the civil service works. The overnight move to remote working accelerated a change that was already taking place across both the private and public sector. Welsh Government has embraced this change and now operates as “a hybrid organisation”.

“We’re not designated as a home working organisation,” Goodall clarifies. “That’s quite an important distinction because it means that we believe that we can be productive and effective by working face to face and in an office environment, but also using the ability to be flexible and work remotely as well… What we want to do is to make sure that this is about how we ensure that the business and operational needs of the organisation, including political expectations, are met whilst being able to use the flexibility that is available to our staff from working from all sorts of different areas of Wales.”

This flexibility, Goodall believes, can open up opportunities for staff who previously may have faced barriers in their careers. Welsh Government staff work across “a range of different sites” and it is now much easier for those not based in Cardiff to work directly with ministers. Goodall says there is a great benefit to the “immediate access” you can get through some of the modern approaches introduced as part of hybrid and remote working. “Ministers can have people landing on screens in their offices rather than expecting somebody from Llandudno to have made their way down to Cardiff for a face to face meeting,” he says.

“There has been a feeling in the past about some of the arrangements and even career opportunities being Cardiff-centric,” Goodall adds. “And I think what a more flexible way of working through using the hybrid approach has shown is that it’s a bit more of a level playing field for progression opportunities and access to ministers from colleagues right across Wales.”

Welsh Government has entered the next phase of this work, which Goodall explains they’re calling “smart working”. He’s clear that he would like “to see more face to face” but says he wants to support line managers and staff “to get there in the right way”.

“What we’re noticing more is that you can see genuinely that people positively experience a face to face contact when there is a clear purpose,” he says. “But what you don’t want to end up with is a mechanism where everybody’s in potentially face to face, but finding themselves just all alongside each other in Teams meetings.”

Goodall says recent discussions with new and younger staff suggest “that they do welcome actually having some of the more direct and personal contact because they’re at the outset of their careers” and haven’t had a chance to build experience or relationships. He believes as the organisation figures out this new way of working, the key will be to keep listening to staff experiences and, when working in person, always make sure “you’re doing it for a purpose, you’re actually doing it because it is effective”.

Social partnership: ingraining a way of working