Skilling and Motivating Staff for Co-production

Abstract

This chapter focuses on skilling and motivating staff for co-production. As the co-production literature emphasises, staff plays a key role in the implementation of co-production, but for that, they may need new skills and training as well as motivation. Therefore it is vital to understand, how staff can be skilled and motivated to co-produce? Seeking answers to this question, this conceptual chapter discusses core skills that professionals need in co-production: segmenting, communication and enabling skills. These skills are interlinked, supporting the motivation of citizen co-producers. Next, the chapter focuses on motivation of professionals, emphasizing the aspects of boundaries and identity work. Consequently, the chapter draws together essential elements of studying the ‘regular producers’ in the co-production, offering also hands-on advice for skilling and motivating personnel.