Small Steps Program

What are we doing?

The Small Steps Program is designed to help identify and enable action to fill the ‘gaps’ within our business. It is part of the broader Financial Sustainability initiative where government organisations need to be smarter with taxpayer’s money.

The program aims to deliver tangible improvement to efficiency and productivity, while building a culture of creativity, empowerment and sustainability – reflecting our Five Ways of Leading and putting People at the Heart. All our employees have great ideas – Small Steps will provide the structure and support to bring these ideas to life.

Small Steps will launch as a pilot in Corporate Services from November 2019, with a broader roll out across Transport in early 2020.

Symbol of Change story

In the past

Transport for NSW and its agencies have operated independently, following processes that are sometimes aligned, and at other times different. The way we manage our resources is inconsistent. This means we are not always efficient or act as one organisation.

Then something happened

NSW Government challenged all clusters to become more sustainable, efficient and effective in the way we use our resources. As the need for and cost of transport services increase, but the money to respond to these demands decrease, Transport must look for smarter ways to do things.

In 2019, Transport for NSW launched Small Steps – a program to help us identify ‘gaps’ that could improve the way we operate. Small Steps will support positive change across the business, and help employees address sources of frustration in our processes and systems. It will also provide an opportunity for employees’ ideas to be heard.

So now

Now our employees feel empowered to identify ‘gaps’ in our organisation – better ways of doing things. As they are close to the processes, our employees are best placed to share opportunities to improve. Transport has become smarter in the way we use taxpayer’s money. This means we are able to invest in more projects and deliver even better services for the people of NSW.

Benefits of this symbol of change

• Small Steps will support positive change across the business, and help employees address sources of frustration in our processes and systems. It will also provide an opportunity for employees’ ideas to be heard.
• Small Steps will deliver improvements to create greater efficiencies across Transport.
• Small Steps is designed to engage our employees to make a positive difference in our organisation.
• Small Steps is one way to bring our Five Ways of Leading to life, helping to foster and embed our leadership behaviours across the organisation.

Communication objectives

• To deliver timely proactive communications to launch Small Steps and create awareness around how to get involved in the program.
• To communicate progress updates and business improvements, raising the reputation of the program and of Corporate Services more broadly.
• To tell the story of Small Steps and how the program is enabling Future Transport, ensuring alignment of messages to our strategic priorities.
• To deliver communication programs leveraging best practice methodologies, including video/podcasts, social channels, and infographics.

Key message themes

• The best improvements don’t usually come from ‘Big Ideas’. It is the small things that we may overlook that can create the most meaningful change.
• We’re launching the Small Steps program to harness our collective expertise and creativity to find and address the gaps in our business.
• Our aim is improvement, not reinvention.
• Instead of coming up with ideas, we are encouraging staff to look for ‘gaps’ at work. Gaps are small annoyances, something that could be done better, or a process that doesn’t make any sense. Gaps are small, they aren’t the Grand Canyon problems. Gaps are the quick wins, they can be acted on and changed without the need for big budgets or additional staff.
• We are aiming to fix one little thing at a time. Progress is our goal.
• Those who identify gaps are often the best poised to make the improvements because they understand the problem intimately.
• The Small Steps team will partner with submitters to develop and implement an idea.