Communicating Through Work Notices

SCIRT used many communications channels to maintain an open and honest dialogue with the community during its rebuild programme. These helped build tolerance and understanding around the disruptive nature of SCIRT’s work. Regular community surveys showed SCIRT’s most effective communication tool was the Work Notice.

Work Notices were cost-effective, printed, mostly one page overviews in simple language with easy to understand graphics of a particular work project. They were generally put in letter boxes at regular intervals in communities where SCIRT had a construction project under way. This included before a project started, updates with progress information during the project, and to thank the community for their patience when the project ended. For particularly disruptive work, the SCIRT Communications Team delivered the Work Notices face-to-face to residents and businesses as part of explaining the work and opening up discussions about any special needs. SCIRT regularly produced more than 120 Work Notices a month and delivered more than 1.7 million city-wide throughout the programme as part of ensuring communities were well informed about what was happening in their area. Households and businesses in areas where there was a lot of rebuild work could receive multiple notices from different construction teams. For that reason, strict guidelines ensured SCIRT Work Notices had a consistent look and feel, language and clear information that made them easily identifiable, and provided a uniform experience for the community that generated confidence in SCIRT as a professional, well-coordinated organisation.

Each Work Notice included the key elements of:

• The “what, why, when, where, how, why” of the project
• Clear simple graphics
• Community impacts such as road and driveway closures, noise, night works, dust, disruption to rubbish pick-up etc
• Safety messages to remind people to take care of children and pets around work areas
• Thanked people for their patience
• Contact details for more information

Work Notices also provided opportunities to reinforce strategic messages such as positive progress and encouraging people to support businesses affected by SCIRT work.

Tags:Communicationcommunityupdateassistancestrategic messaging