Gigabit January 2019

EUROPE
Charles Ewen,
Chief Information Officer
Met Office
success. As such, a key part of the
organisation’s strategy revolves around
people. “Within our strategy we have
a plan to attract retain and develop our
people and so it’s clearly very important.
We talk about mastery, autonomy
and purpose. Mastery refers to developing
the unique blend of skills that we
need so we invest strongly in training
our people,” he says. Indeed, Met Office
has developed a variety of new
apprenticeships and works to broaden
its relationship with academic settings.
“We also try to create an exciting
environment that people want to work
in,” he adds.
The Met Office has worked hard to
forge a work culture which strives to do
more. The biggest barrier to continuous
improvement? Sparking a cultural shift
whereby people recognise the need to
change. “That can be tricky when you’re
a world leading organisation at the top
of its game,” admits Ewen. “However,
because we’re an organisation full of
bright and able people we can see
where some of the future challenges
and opportunities lie. Because of that,
it's important to start to change ideally
ahead of when you really need to, which
is what we've been trying to do.”
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