In 2021, the City of Calgary needed to determine their return to work plan and wanted to take a future-focused approach to making the decision. Given how much COVID-19 had changed about the way municipal staff were working, Creative Futures worked the City of Calgary to identify a preferred remote work model that met their changing needs, was future-oriented, and unlocked cost savings.

Our Approach:

• Research and analysis to identify the range of possible futures related to remote work.

• Developed four possible future scenarios of remote work.

• Conducted interviews with service owners to understand their current experience with remote work and what was working well and what was presenting challenges.

• Designed and facilitated a series of participatory workshops with five different complex services at The City in order to explore the implications and range of preferred future options.

• Prepared three options for the future of remote work to be considered by the Steering Committee.

• Designed and facilitated a workshop with the Steering Committee to stress test the robustness of proposed options against possible future scenarios to strengthen the proposal and identify potential risks.

• Developed final recommendations for the City of Calgary to future-proof their remote work approach moving forward.

Results:

The final recommended option and implementation strategy was presented to the Executive Leadership Team.