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Huntingdonshire District Council
Workforce Development Strategy:
maintaining a capable, confident
and committed workforce
Version: FINAL
Prepared by: LGSS: Organisational and Workforce Development
Linked documents: Corporate Plan 2014-16
2
Section 1: Introduction
The Council’s Corporate Plan 2014-2016 sets out what we need to do to be
successful.
Our vision is to continue to improve the quality of life for the people of
Huntingdonshire and work towards sustainable economic growth while providing
value for money services. To achieve this we need the right people with the right
skills, in the right place at the right time. Key to Huntingdonshire District Council’s
success is you, our workforce, and enabling a skilled and motivated workforce is
critical.
Facing a number of challenges over future years, we need a highly skilled workforce,
equipped to support our customers’, councillor’s and partners’ requirements. We
need to invest in our workforce and you need to be the best you can be. This
strategy and action plan outlines how we will do this together.
Who this strategy is for
This strategy is for you, our employees, to show what we will be doing to recruit and
retain the right people, to develop our existing workforce, to improve our time at work
and enable you to deliver your best.
Who we consulted with
The strategy reflects a broad range of views resulting from consultation with: the
senior management team, staff, managers, the Staff Council, Cabinet and the
Employment Panel.
A vision for HDC
Our strategic themes and outcomes for 2014 – 2016 are:
A strong local economy – making Huntingdonshire a better place to live, work
and invest
Enabling sustainable growth – delivering new and appropriate housing with
minimum impact on our environment
Working with our communities – making sure they thrive and get involved with
local decision making
Ensuring we are a customer focused and service led council – delivering
value for money services.
3
We will be achieving this in the context of a severely constrained budget for the
foreseeable future, with the challenges and opportunities of an ageing population,
and increased citizen demands for more choice and better service outcomes. Like
other public sector organisations we face the need to make transformational change
to the way HDC operates - our infrastructure and the way we deliver our services.
We need to make significant change quickly and some of this change is already
underway.
What does a future HDC look like?
HDC will be a leaner, smaller organisation, with a flexible and agile workforce where
we all need to be accommodating and responsive to changing demands. Different
business models to help us be more cost effective, for example, shared services, or
partnership arrangements, may change our locations and working arrangements.
We will need to make some uncomfortable decisions about reducing or losing some
services, or charging for some of the services we currently provide or others
providing them instead.
Technology will help increase opportunities to deliver services differently. Reducing
cost through reducing office space, enabled by technology, will increase the
opportunities for flexible working. To meet the demands on us we will need to be
more commercially and customer focused.
All these changes offer challenges as well as opportunities for everyone and cannot
be achieved without a commitment to change from all of us. This workforce
development strategy is aimed at outlining how the council will develop your skills
and abilities, intended to ensure your own capability, motivation and engagement in
bringing about these changes and to make HDC a great place to work.
Our priorities for the next 18 months
While there is some urgency to make fundamental change to the way we work, we
also need to ensure that we do this in a way that provides a firm foundation for the
future. The following provides an overview of the priorities over the next 18 months.
Facing the Future: establishing the means of creating a sustainable future for
service delivery for the people of Huntingdonshire at an appropriate and
affordable level.
Exploring the choices we need to define the purpose and structure of the
organisation: what we do and what others are better placed to do.
Getting ready for years 2-3:completing the set-up of shared service
arrangements and continuing to achieve efficiencies; driving service
prioritisation; reviewing alternative methods of delivering services; putting in
place the infrastructure to support future agile working (HR policies, IT etc.)
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Potentially closing down some activities and services, whilst also prioritising
those areas of most importance
Setting up new activities and services
Expanding shared services
Within the next five years we expect to see the growth agenda across the District
well underway and to see tangible outcomes from the earlier work, a more focused,
cost effective and resilient organisation.
What this workforce strategy will mean for you
As a valued HDC employee, you will need to:
Take an interest in knowing more about HDC and the regular updates
on our future plans
Understand and demonstrate our values and competencies
Be prepared to contribute your views and ideas: regular team
meetings, 1:1s, annual appraisal, focus groups and meet-SMT
sessions – all these provide opportunities for you to do this
Have a flexible and agile approach and help to create an
organisational culture that is focused on customer needs
Know who our leadership and management team are
Encourage innovation in the way that we work
Feel recognised and rewarded for your contribution
Be positive and supported through the transition to our new ways of
working
Enjoy the benefits of working for HDC
If a manager, you will need to:
- Provide strategic direction and make sound leadership decisions
- Recognise good performance……
- Provide your teams with appropriate support …..
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Section 2: Our current workforce
Since 2013 our number of employees has been gradually decreasing. We employ
659 people at HDC. This decrease is in line with other councils: in the LGA’s
workforce survey (2012/13) 71% of responding councils said they had reduced the
number of staff posts to reduce workforce cost.
Workforce Profile Key Facts
Age
The average age of our employees is 46 years. Currently just over 40% of staff are
aged over 50. To ensure the resilience of the Council we will want to retain the skills
and knowledge of our experienced colleagues while growing others within the
organisation.
Length of service
Our average length of service is around 10 years, close to the Local Government
average of 12 years.
Employee turnover
Our turnover over the last few years has varied. In 2014 (calendar year) our
employee turnover was 14.8% compared to 7.3% in 2013 and 11% in 2012.1 A
reasonable level of turnover is seen as positive in maintaining the resilience of the
organisation while bringing new skills and ideas.
1 Figures calculated based on all permanent employees leaving as a percentage of all permanent
employees
627 620.4 599.7 580.37 577.08 563.78
703 705 680 667 653 659
0
100
200
300
400
500
600
700
800
Q2 2013/14 Q3 2013/14 Q4 2013/14 Q1 2014/15 Q2 2014/15 Q3 2014/15
Nu
mb
er
of
Emp
loye
ss
Headcount & FTE Trend
FTE Headcount
6
Sickness absence
The graph shows the trend of average sickness absence per full-time equivalent
(FTE) employee since December 2012. It shows that sickness absence has
increased to 11.1 days lost per FTE. It is higher than the corresponding period the
previous year (7.9 days/FTE) and also, is above the CIPD Public Sector Average
and EELGA Authority Average.
We all need to address this level of absence as it reduces the capacity of the Council
to deliver its business.
Ethnicity
Two per cent of our workforce are from a Black and Minority Ethnic background.
Comparing this against the population, in the 2011 Census, 5.2% of the district’s
usual residents described themselves as non-White.
8.4
8.9 8.7
8.3
7.97.6
8.2
10.1
11.1
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
Q3
2012
/13
Q4
2012
/13
Q1
2013
/14
Q2
2013
/14
Q3
2013
/14
Q4
2013
/14
Q1
2014
/15
Q2
2014
/15
Q3
2014
/15
Sickness Absence per FTE
HDC Days Lost EELGA average (7.4 days) CIPD Public Sector average (8.7 days)
Other workforce profile key facts
Just over a quarter of our workforce work part time
A majority of our employees are women (53%)
8% of staff have declared a disability
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Our values
Selflessness
Honesty & Integrity
Objectivity
Accountability
Openness
Leadership
Section 3: Creating a culture for Huntingdonshire District
Council
Culture is often described as ‘the way we do things round here’. It is demonstrated
in the way we all act and behave. We need all our employees to identify positively
with HDC as their employer and to feel connected to our vision and values.
We already have a well-developed set of core values, and a set of competencies that
we are in the process of embedding, that apply to everyone. These are important
because they provide an explicit, practical expression of how we work and need to
work.
The results of the employee survey in July 2014
tell us that most of you consider you are treated
fairly at work and with respect by the people you
work with. However, some have experienced
discrimination or bullying and harassment at
work. We will reinforce the values and
behaviours that we expect of all staff and will not
tolerate poor behaviour. The Code of Conduct
makes clear what we expect you to demonstrate
every day and require you to evidence each year
through the annual appraisal process. The code
also protects each of us and provides advice on
managing difficult situations. We are also
producing an employee handbook that will
provide a summary of the benefits that HDC
employees will receive.
8
Our competencies
Customer focus: understanding and responding to the needs of our
customers
Influencing: achieving impact using confident persuasiveness
Innovation: generating and critically evaluating new approaches to
continual improvement
Decision making: assessing the evidence and making sound, timely
decisions
Planning and organising: establishing and implementing clear actions and
timeframes
Flexibility: adapting constructively to respond to changing need
Management of others: sets clear objectives for others, supports and
motivates, recognises good performance and tackles poor performance
Commercial awareness: identifies opportunities to make the organisation
more competitive, efficient and profitable; includes financial factors in
decision making; knows and manages a budget
Embedding our values and competencies
We are working hard to embed our values and competencies:
We have produced the Code of Conduct to provide guidance to employees on
the behaviour we expect
We are embedding the competencies and values in our job descriptions and
person specifications
The new performance appraisal process will be underpinned by both the
values and the competencies
We are developing our training programme to target the necessary skills and
behaviours
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Employee Engagement
Employee engagement is defined as how committed we feels towards HDC, its
vision, strategic priorities and values. It is reflected in how aligned each of our own
objectives, values and aspirations are to HDC’s, how involved we all feel and how
proud we are to work for HDC - our organisational ‘citizenship’.
The employee opinion survey carried out in 2014 provided valuable feedback on how
employees feel about HDC. We were encouraged by the feedback that showed that
the majority of you are confident in decisions made by your manager, that nearly all
of you have the skills to do the job effectively, that most of you feel you are treated
fairly at work and with respect by the people you work with.
Some feedback suggested that we need to do more to help employees understand
the Council’s vision and objectives and how our roles contribute to the success of the
organisation. We need to improve the way news and information is communicated,
including raising individual and collective accountability. We need to recognise and
value the contribution that we all make to HDC’s success, and change needs to be
handled more effectively. The Employee Opinion Survey action plan outlines the
steps being taken to respond to the messages from the survey.
We can only succeed if we are all prepared to commit to engaging with the Council,
for example, by modelling the values and behaviours set out in the Code of Conduct,
by actively participating in identifying your learning needs through your PDR and
PDP, by contributing your suggestions for improvement – and by recognising that the
changes we need to take will take time and require positivity from us all.
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Section 4: Developing the future Huntingdonshire District
Council workforce
The overall size of the HDC workforce has been reducing over a number of years
and this will continue, given the constraints on funding and the need for greater
efficiency. We will need to continually review the way we operate and the services
we deliver.
We have to ensure that our workforce evolves to support these changes, that we
both attract and retain key talent, but also have the mechanisms in place to ‘grow
our own’ talent and become necessarily agile.
Having the right workforce policies and working practices
Our role and job descriptions will need to become more flexible so that we can meet
changing needs. We will expect managers and employees to regularly review job
roles in order to make sure these meet our business needs. We are looking at how
we recognise and reward employees, celebrate and learn from successes and how
to develop flexible working arrangements.
Reviewing services
We will continue to fundamentally review services to ensure we are delivering what
we can afford and what our customers need. These reviews are likely to lead to
changes in what we do and how we do it. As part of this process we will identify the
number and types of staff and range of skills that need to be in place.
As part of this ongoing review process we will identify different business models to
help us deliver a service more cost effectively. This could include more shared
services or partnerships with other organisations.
Talent management
As part of developing our workforce we want to understand our employees’ career
aspirations – what you want to achieve and how we can help you to do this, but
progressing this needs to be owned by you.
Line managers will be encouraged to use the performance appraisal process and
regular 1:1’s to put in place individual development plans.
We will expect our managers to identify talent within their teams, and develop and
help the organisation to use this talent. This will help us to develop a pool of talented
employees with transferable expertise who can support the Council across key areas
and allow us to move resources around more flexibly and at short notice to meet
demand and improvement initiatives.
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Bringing in new talent
We need a diverse range of skills and experience and, when appropriate, we will
recruit people to join the Council. Our approach will include recruiting apprentices
and graduates, where we can ‘grow our own’, as well as directly recruiting people
with relevant skills and experience.
Promoting work flexibility
We will encourage flexibility across the organisation. This will ensure the best use of
our employee’s skills and capacity, and offer the individual the opportunity to develop
their skills and enhance their promotional opportunities and career aspirations.
These opportunities could take the form of secondments, job rotation or involvement
in cross organisation projects where we can bring together a wide range of skills and
experience.
Leadership and management
Good leadership and management is key to the Council’s success.
A key part of our workforce development strategy is to ensure our leaders are
equipped with the tools, knowledge, skills and attributes to support the delivery of a
challenging agenda. We have already identified the competencies that we need and
have embedded these into all job roles through job descriptions, through the
objective and appraisal setting process, as well as by training to support
development at all levels. They also underpin the development programme that the
senior leadership team is already participating in.
Development priorities
We will focus our development priorities on the following areas:
Leadership and management: enhancing performance, change management,
decision making, communication and engagement skills
Commercial skills: financial awareness, commissioning and procurement,
contract negotiation, management and monitoring.
Technology and business transformation: increasing ICT skills and use,
identifying business models for future delivery, building partnerships.
Customer focus: understanding our communities’ needs, managing
expectations.
A new working environment
The world of work has been changing for some time, whether in the private or public
sector, driven by the need to reduce costs and to take advantage of the opportunities
that technology provides to work more flexibly. The Council needs to find better ways
to use technology and create efficiencies in the way it works. To promote agile
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working, one step that we are taking is to enable remote working whilst reducing
office space.
This means we will have different working practices whether these are electronic
storage systems to reduce paper systems or flexible working. Services and teams
will need to work differently focusing on both process and behavioural changes. The
service reviews will reflect these changes.
There are advantages for both the organisation and employees in developing flexible
working, for example it provides a wider pool of potential recruits for the Council, and
for all of us, it can improve work-life balance through reduced travel to work time and
by working directly across the District in a location nearer to home or at home.
Developments in technology will enable us to achieve this and will require an
investment in appropriate technology, the development of relevant ICT skills in our
employees, and a different way to manage people.
How will we know if this strategy is working?
The strategy will be working if we deliver on our Corporate Plan outcomes, if our
employees feel more involved and valued for their contribution. The Council and
public will also see tangible improvement to the efficiency of the way we all work and
of the services we provide. The senior leadership team will monitor this plan at
regular intervals.
Key measures will be:
An increase in skills and knowledge tracked through the annual appraisal
process
Motivated employees shown through our employee surveys and day to day
culture
Reduction in absence rates and a healthy turnover rate
Less recruitment needed due to having a strong talent pool.
Reduction in recruitment times and costs
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Workforce Development Action Plan
What How Who
Culture and employee engagement
1. Increase engagement and
improve communications with
all employees
Implement the Employee Opinion Survey Action Plan
Develop a Communication Strategy
Corporate communications
team and directors and
managers
2. Integrate HDC values and
competencies
Values to be incorporated into regular 1:1s and appraisals
Monitor the implementation of the Code of Conduct through
appraisals and line management
All managers
3. Review HDC induction Review the induction process to ensure that new starters
understand HDC’s role, its expectations of employees, and what
expectations they can have of the Council
OWD review of induction
already underway
4. Create a culture of innovation Establish a suggestion scheme CMT
5. Embed HDC’s competencies Integrate into job descriptions and person specifications
Integrate into the new appraisal scheme
Provide training to employees as part of the appraisal scheme
launch briefings
HR
All managers to use in
appraisal process
HR/OWD to integrate into
appraisal briefings
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What How Who
6. Ensure all staff know what is
expected of them, have
objectives set, receive feedback
on their performance
All employees have regular and appropriate 1:1s and an annual
appraisal, as well as attending regular team meetings
All managers
Developing the future HDC workforce
7. Ensure HR policies reflect
changing need including:
recruitment, reward, absence
Programme to review policies is in place HR and CMT
8. Identify organisation
development and learning
needs
Every Service Review is identifying learning needs
Workforce development strategy to be monitored and reviewed to
ensure it is responsive to changing need
Develop annual training plans for each Service area
Reviewing managers and
OWD
CMT and OWD
Managers and OWD
9. Talent management Ensure all employees have a PDP
Provide guidance to managers on how to do this
Managers
OWD
10. Promote work flexibility Establish a mechanism to offer opportunities to employees to
work in other parts of the organisation or on organisation wide
projects
CMT
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What How Who
11.Leadership and
management
Continue the Senior Leadership Development Programme for
leadership team
Target management training by role, performance need, and
through appraisals
Integrate desired level of skill into job descriptions and person
specification
Integrate as an objective into appraisal process
SMT
Directors and HoS with
support from OWD
HR
All managers
12. Develop commercial skills
within the Council
Increase ICT skills
Develop understanding and
knowledge of business models
Increase understanding of and
responsiveness to customer
need
Identify the level and type of need of training and develop an
appropriate programme of learning
Identify opportunities for employees to embed their learning
Integrate desired level of skill into job descriptions and person
specification
Integrate as an objective into appraisal process
OWD
Directors and HoS
HR
All managers
13. Creating a new working
environment
Identify and act on the implications of working more flexibly on: CMT, HR, managers
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What How Who
HR policies and practice
Behavioural change in the workplace
Management skills and practice
Technology provision