Hi Kelly,

Yes - I introduced a surgery whereby I set myself up in a smallish meeting room in our main offices (so I travelled to the people) and people could drop in and out as they wished. If no one came, I could get on with some non-confidential work, but if they did they got my full attention in private without the ability to see anything else going on in the HR office. As an HR team, we all conducted surgeries on regular basis e.g. our Payroll & Benefits lady did surgeries, L&D did IDP surgeries etc.
We firmly communicated that these surgeries were not to replace our ability to respond to urgent or critical enquiries (e.g. you can message/visit at any time via our usual methods and we'd respond) but if the enquiry wasn't urgent or critical, we could politely ask them to wait for a surgery and they get a face to face answer.
The first surgeries were mental - but it highlighted certain trends as we kept getting similar questions so we could provide other ways of answering (we improved our internal site, we pushed a lot of information out, improved some wording on policies to make things clearer etc).
As we continued, the surgeries became less busy; however it was always specifically noted in engagement surveys that employees liked the 'proactive' nature of HR, getting out and being seen by the business, and being proactive in overcoming communication issues. It worked well for us - that being said, we were a team so whilst someone was holding a surgery, others were continuing with their case load. I might see it struggling as a process if stand alone.
Kind regards,
Laura

Hi Kelly,

I operate a sort of unofficial open door policy (for want of a better description); most staff know that if my door is open then you can come in and speak with me, but if my door is closed and we don't have a meeting I am generally not available. I don't enforce this to strictly but it does work most of the time and I find this is ok for both me and other employees including management.

If my door is open and I really can't stop to chat for whatever reason, I usually ask if it's important and if not, is it ok if I come and find them in half and hour or so. Generally most of time people are fine with this and only occasionally do I really need to drop what I'm doing to deal with the matter whilst the person is there.

Admittedly it does help that our business is split across two buildings a very short distance away so people generally only wander over to talk to me if they really need to, otherwise they wait until I am over in their building.

I would look at what will work for you time-wise and your working style and that of the business.

Hopefully you'll find something that works for more or less everyone :-)

It doesn’t really help you but I used to work in an open(ish) plan office. I had two small flags on my desk. If the red one was upright people knew to leave me alone, but the green one meant OK to chat. It was a system adopted by many others in the office as people saw it as the equivalent of an open/shut door, not easy to do usually. One colleague had managed to get a foot-high set of traffic lights - ooooo, how I coverted that!

Thank you all. I am stand alone which is part of the reason I am considering it. I have until recently adopted an open door policy which seemed to work. However, now more and more frequently people just knock and come in. Although it may only take 5 to 10 minutes to discuss if I am working on something strategic it is quite distracting.

I also only see the same people and I wonder if some people are nervous about contacting me in my office and potentially disrupting me. I wondered if Surgery hours might make it more likely that people will come and see me if they have an issue, rather than put it off.