Highways work in Trafford is being completed in a third of the time since the council revamped its pay system and management style.
Around 35 staff who carry out highways, streetlighting and drainage repairs are now paid monthly, instead of the previous weekly bonus pay system. A new performance-monitoring system, which separates performance from pay, is also being attributed to driving up both the volume and quality of the work. Martin Walls, the council’s highways operations manager, said: ‘Staff had to come every Thursday to pick up their payslips and they were never sure what was in their pay packet, because of the bonus scheme.
They are no longer penalised when they need to be off sick – people were coming in too ill to work properly, just because of the bonus. ‘Yet, by fully implementing the council’s new sickness absence policy, sickness levels are down to 3% over the summer from more than 10% two years ago.’ Now, 97% of urgent jobs are being completed within deadlines, and repairs classified as top priority are usually carried out within two hours of a report, while the turnaround for routine highways repairs is now between three and five years.

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