PARK AND ROAD STAFF ALSO SERVE AS TOURIST GUIDES

The employees in Billund Municipality’s Park and Road Department have found a solution that better equips them to handle enquiries from passers-by and to give tourists directions. This means that the municipality is able to provide a service that would otherwise have been unaffordable.

Tourists and local residents often ask municipal staff questions that are time-consuming to answer. Giving directions to nearby tourist attractions in a foreign language can also be a challenge.

The municipality’s 50 employees receive about 10-20 enquires each summer but now they are armed with tourist maps and business cards, allowing them to draw routes directly on a map to more easily send tourists in the right direction, say, to LEGOLAND®. If people ask multiple questions, a business card from the right city department can be just the help they need. The We’ll Sort It Out Together scheme is a 2015 strategic initiative designed to increase the co-creation and quality of municipal services. To this end, together with the consultancy Joint Action, Billund Municipality has trained 100 managers and employees as agents of change. They learned to rethink core municipal tasks from a citizen’s point of view, providing one another with mutual inspiration across departments and professions. At a Park and Road staff meeting, two agents of change, including shop steward Poul Hansen, called for new ideas to improve services, proposing the idea for tourist maps and business cards. Management helped with development and implementation.