Agenda item

Draft People Strategy

Minutes:

the Head of Corporate Services gave a presentation which outlined the key strands of the People Strategy and the individual components of each strand.

 

            The Strategy would set out how the Authority planned to attract, nurture, empower, retain and incentivise people, thereby ensuring a workforce that could successfully deliver the Council’s ambitions.

 

            These ambitions sought to build on the Council’s commercial skills, drive digital by default, introduce different means of service provision, continually improve efficiency and effectiveness of service, manage increasing demand and reducing income, create an agile workforce and support a reducing and ageing workforce.

 

            Consideration was given to each of the four key strands of the strategy set out below together with their individual components:

 

  • Organising and empowering the workforce
  • Engaging and looking after employees
  • Motivating and rewarding employees
  • Attracting talent and developing people

 

Members were advised that the Strategy would be developed by the People Strategy Working Group comprising a cross section of staff and union representatives. The Group would examine key areas and engage the wider workforce, with the aim of developing a strategy document by September 2018. Work would be undertaken to determine baseline metrics and delivery would be achieved via an action plan. Actions and metrics would then be monitored and reported annually.

 

In response to a question about opportunities for school leavers it was advised that the Council tried to accommodate placements from schools although there could be problems with capacity given the small size of many teams. Meanwhile, entry level positions were being looked at as part of the apprenticeship framework. It was agreed that maximising opportunities for young people was something that should be explored by the strategy focus groups.

 

Reference was made to the importance of the working environment and it was questioned whether it might be difficult to attract people from larger urban centres and the private sector given the condition and set-up of the Council offices. It was suggested that developing agile working may help address the issue.

 

The importance of collecting relevant baseline data in order to set appropriate targets was emphasised. It was noted that a staff survey was undertaken annually and this together with workforce profiling information and routine metrics would be fed into the process. This would help focus on areas where there may be issues.

 

The need to provide IT training for Members was mentioned during the discussion on skills profiling to ensure they were able to contribute to the overall culture of the organisation.

 

 

The shortage of resources was recognised as a potential problem but also, with the correct culture, as a potential driver for innovation. It was noted that ultimately it was important to focus on the services that the authority existed to deliver.

 

The Chairman thanked the Head of Corporate Services and Human Resources Manager for their work and noted that the development of the strategy would continue under the new Chairman and Vice-Chairman.

 

RESOLVED: (1) That the key strands and main components of the people strategy be noted.

 

(2) That the proposals for developing and delivering the strategy be noted.