Facing into Change: Culture Call at Immigration Enforcement

This is the third report in the series Facing into Change. While all three reports have been set in a public sector context, they deal with the common human challenges of delivering change in a turbulent environment, restructuring and transformation, cost-cutting against increasing service demands, efficiency and performance management, and often deep rooted cynicism about change management itself. The setting, however, means that these issues are played out in a political environment with a media seemingly eager for stories of failure and, while individuals strive hard to do their best in the workplace, there is seldom any public recognition or thanks.

This report focuses on the Culture Call initiative at Immigration Enforcement (IE). It examines the success of Culture Call as a social movement, where the ability to spread and capture hearts and minds is a precursor to long-lasting change. It brings together evidence from face-to-face interviews and focus groups with around fifty individuals from across IE in January 2017.

The report highlights the Appreciative Inquiry (AI) methodology, used to gather stories about people at their best through 'appreciative' conversations. Through this methodology, Culture Call has already started to see signs of a more appreciative environment at IE. This report details the path towards this success.