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Retaining Recruits

High staff turnover can be costly for councils, particularly in traditional hard-to-fill jobs. Robert Bullard reports on ideas for improving recruitment and retention of staff. (Local Government Chronicle, 1st May 2008)

CONDUCT A STAFF REVIEW

In 2005, 42% of qualified social workers working in Harrow LBC’s children’s services were supplied by employment agencies, which was causing the council a 30% overspend of £900,000 a year.

“There were considerable difficulties in staff recruitment and retention,” says Paul Wedgbury, the council’s divisional director for safeguarding & family support. The department had an outdated staff structure, jobs were not evaluated, recruitment exercises were carried out on an ad hoc basis, and agencies were given different contracts.

Over a two-year period the department carried out a comprehensive review. It looked at individual staff roles, and their pay and contributions to the department’s business needs. The results were then compared with other councils.

All the 76 social workers had a one-to-one meeting a member of the senior management team, which Mr Wedgbury says particularly useful. The talks gave management the chance to explain where the department had been going wrong and how it planned to improve things. “We needed to convince staff that we really valued them,” says Mr Wedgbury.

By October 2007, the department had made some “stunning improvements,” according to Mr Wedgbury. The council no longer used any agency staff, helping it to become one of London’s highest paying councils. And improvements in several performance saw Harrow rise from being a two-star to a three star council during the comprehensive performance assessment.

PROMOTE THE SECTOR’S IMAGE

City & County of Swansea faced several difficulties in recruiting community care assistants. Neighbouring councils and other employers offered higher salaries for similar positions, and the council’s lengthy application forms deterred some people from applying.

In 2006, the home care team worked with an advertising company to draw up a series of job-specific posters. The posters used striking images and catchy headlines to convey more details about the job and highlight its non-financial rewards.

The posters ran for six months in the local press, on billboards and on buses and at local radio stations. Anyone who enquired about the posts was asked for brief details, and only those candidates meeting the minimum employment criteria were invited to fill in an application form.

“The campaign had quite a significant impact,” says Helen Butt, staff development officer at Swanseas. “People said the posters really stood out and provided a fuller explanation of the job’s role.”


During the campaign over 420 people made enquiries and 27% of these were offered jobs.

TRAIN YOUR OWN STAFF

Brent LBC’s social services department has carried out several initiatives to recruit staff from the local labour market.

As part of the Fair Cities initiative, which aims to help people from ethnic minority groups get steady work and find new careers, the council got funding in 2007 to train and provide placements for people interested in working in day care. Of the 14 who started training, nine completed the programme and were later employed by Brent.

“It saved the council around £8000 on advertising costs,” says Anna Dias, the council’s learning and development manager. “And it met the corporate objectives of providing jobs to unemployed local people and addressing hard to fill vacancies.”

Brent intends to extend the programme this year, in a partnership with the learning and skills council.

Meanwhile, trainee social workers have been recruited through two similar initiatives. With Home Office funding, the council has given jobs to refugees living in Brent, and each year the council offers work placements to students, some of whom it then employs.

In 2007, the council also provided placements to six post-graduate students from the University of Southern California. Not only have four stayed on to work as care managers, but the research part of their placement was like “free consultancy advice” for the department, MS Dias says.

LEARN FROM JOB LEAVERS

In order to help Kent CC understand why its teachers move to schools outside the area or quite the profession altogether, those who leave are asked to complete a questionnaire.

Developed by engagement and retention specialists TalentDrain, the questionnaires were introduced 18 months ago.

To encourage honesty, respondents anonymously fill in the survey online, which takes about 15 minutes to complete.

“Teachers say they are under a tremendous amount of pressure,” says Steve Wood, Kent CC’s council’s recruitment and retention manager for schools. “We cannot stop the pressure, but we can make them better equipped to deal with it.”

In response to the feedback, the council has developed a well-being programme for its teachers and school-based staff, to help them mange their work/life balance.

The programme – running in 30 Kent schools - gives people an individual report on how they can improve their time-management, and how exercise, nutrition and diet can have a positive affect on their mood and performance.

This summer, Kent is introducing a survey for its newly qualified teachers, who will be questioned at the end of their first year. “They are our future,” says Mr Wood. “It is important that we know what they are thinking, so we keep them in the profession.”

INCREASE STAFF BENEFITS

With a staff turnover of almost 15%, Nottingham City Council was ordered to improve its human resource management by the Audit Commission in 2002.

Since then, the council has responded by introducing WorksPerks. The package offers staff tax-free benefits, including childcare vouchers and bicycles, and home computers were made available for a limited period.

“Our staff benefits package was very outdated,” says Helen Humphries, the council’s HR Consultant. “We knew we had to do more if we wanted to compete alongside the city’s leading employers.”

A quarter of Nottingham’s 13,000 employees enjoy at least one of the benefits and even more take advantage of some of the scheme’s discounts.

The impact of WorksPerks has so far been modest – staff turnover has dropped to below 14%. But it has been kept running by adding new benefits and giving all staff a DVD to encourage take-up of the scheme.

Ms Humphries explains that the staff benefits were introduced at no cost to the council. Tax-free benefits are deducted from an employee’s gross salary, which means less national insurance is payable by the council. Any profits are ploughed back into the scheme.

To encourage more people to apply for vacancies at the council, Nottingham has also changed its recruitment practices. Attendance at recruitment fairs has been dropped in favour of community-based events, which allow the council to target the city’s disadvantaged groups. Practical job-specific tests have also replaced lengthy application forms, to remove some of the barriers that deter some people from applying.

Find out more

Harrow LBC
Paul Wedgbury, divisional director for safeguarding & family support. Tel: 0208 424 1368 or e-mail: paul.wedgbury@harrow.gov.uk

Swansea City and Borough Council
Julie Butt, staff development officer. Tel: 01792 636256 or e-mail: julie.butt@swansea.gov.uk

Brent LBC
Anna Dias, learning and development manager. Tel: 0208 937 6196 or e-mail: Anna.Dias@brent.gov.uk

Kent CC
Steve Wood, recruitment and retention manager for schools. Tel: 01622 694824 or e-mail: woodss10@kent.gov.uk

Nottingham City Council
Helen Humphries, HR Consultant. Tel: 0115 915 4516 or e-mail: helen.humphries@nottinghamcity.gov.uk


© Robert Bullard. Not for reproduction without prior permission



 

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