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APPENDIX D

Southend-on-Sea Borough Council

Recruitment and Retention Strategy

(To be Reviewed)

Date: 21st June 2005Version: V4Status: FinalAuthor: Karen MelvilleLocation:PYXIS/Home/karen melville/Rec Brief/write up/strategy

Southend-on-Sea Borough Council

Recruitment and Retention strategy

2 Final V4

Version History

Number Date Description AuthorV1 25th April 2005 Draft for review and comment Karen MelvilleV2 27th April Draft for review and comment Karen MelvilleV3 7th June For review and comment by Robert

TinlinKaren Melville

Sign Off

Name RoleJoanna Ruffle Assistant Personnel Director

Distribution List

Version Name Role Action RequiredV1 Pat O’Neil Personnel Manager Review and

commentJacqui Henderson

Personnel Manager Review and comment

Joanna Ruffle Assistant Personnel Director Review and comment

V2 Ray Childs Senior Assistant Borough Treasurer Review and comment

Brain Smith Group Manager Technical & Environmental Services

Review and comment

Jim Gray HR Manager Social Care Review and comment

Karen Wright Chief Administration Officer – Leisure Culture and Amenity Services

Review and comment

Mark Foote Personnel Manager - Education Review and comment

Trevor Toms Health & Safety Manager Review and comment

Craig Jones HR Manager – Education and Life Long Learning

Review and comment

Pat O’Neil Personnel Manager Review and comment

Jacqui Henderson

Personnel Manager Review and comment

Joanna Ruffle Assistant Personnel Director Review and comment

V3 Robert Tinlin Chief Executive and Town Clerk Review and comment


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Content

1. PURPOSE OF THE REPORT ......................................................................................................4

2. INTRODUCTION ...............................................................................................................................4

3. AIMS OF STRATEGY........................................................................................................................4

4. APPROACH FOR DEVELOPING THE STRATEGY ...................................................................4

5. MAIN OUTCOMES OF THE CURRENT STATE ASSESSMENT .............................................5

6. OUR STRATEGIC APPROACH....................................................................................................6

7. HOW WILL WE MEASURE THE SUCCESS OF THE STRATEGY? .......................................8

8. HOW WILL THE STRATEGY BE IMPLEMENTED? ...................................................................8

9. HIGH LEVEL TIMESCALES ..........................................................................................................10


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1. Purpose of the Report

This report outlines a recruitment and retention strategy that will enable the Council to manage it’s resources more effectively whilst at the same time ensuring it attracts and retains the right level of resources with the right skills.

2. Introduction

With tight labour markets, anticipated skills shortages in certain key areas, an ageing workforce, increasing demands for modernisation, efficiency and excellence, the Council needs to approach recruitment more proactively as we are competing to attract employees from a limited pool of candidates.

Put simply the people we are looking for, the people that will make a real difference to the Council are very much in demand.

As a consequence there is a pressing need for the Council to raise it’s game in order to attract and retain the quality workforce we will need to meet these increasing demands.

3. Aims of strategy

The overriding aims of the recruitment and retention strategy are to:-

Recruit and retain the right people, with the right skills at the right time and at the right cost

As the war to attract talent increases it is important that the Council not only matches what other Council’s have in place, but that it is seen to be innovative and flexible in the way it attracts and retains key employees.

However if the strategy is to be effective, there will need to be a cultural shift within the Council that ensures we truly recognise, and value, high performing employees. Commitment from Senior Management is fundamental in ensuring that we bring the strategy to life.

4. Approach for developing the strategy

A consultation exercise was undertaken to ascertain the current processes and practices with the following:-


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Workshops held with the various recruitment teams to understand the operational processes and procedures and service provided to our customers

Feedback was obtained from 20 Line Managers to understand how the recruitment teams support them, their recruitment hot spots, why people leave the Council and key sources for new recruits.

Analysis of existing management information obtained from exit interviews, budgets and the HR system.

Feedback from Unison.

All information obtained from these sources has supported the development of the strategy.

5. Main outcomes of the Current State Assessment

A detailed summary of the review can be found in Appendix 1 but the findings are summarised below:-

Structure Departmentally based, small teams, offering different levels of HR support to Line Managers (refer to Appendix 2 for breakdown of current staff costs)

Cost Difficult to determine and effectively manage costs as total cost of recruitment not transparent.

Technology Inefficient processes as limited use is made of existing technology, thus leading to unnecessary costs in terms processing applications.

Management Information (MI)

Insufficient management information (MI) essential for strategic planning and decision making.

Customer Experience

Inconsistent experience for both Line Managers needing to recruit and individuals seeking to join the Council.

Training Lack of HR experience across some of the teams restricting the value that HR can add to the process. Reliance on HR in some Departments to support interviews as Line Managers not trained. Limited attendance, by Managers on the corporate training event for interview and selection.

Attraction of Candidates

Poor image of Local Government and limited understanding of most appropriate method to attract candidates. No ability to apply “on-line” and only partial use of an internal job advertising scheme. Incomplete and ad-hoc research to enable the Council to understand how we compare with other Councils. Job Descriptions and Person Specifications are dated and should be refreshed


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in order to provide candidates with a realistic preview of the role they are applying for.

Selection of Candidates

Panel interviews is the preferred selection approach. Inconsistent use of selection tests, and HR required to attend some interviews. Interviews focus on job requirements as opposed to behaviours (competencies). Tendency to “buy in resource”, there is limited evidence to support a “grow our own culture”.

Induction Lack of clarity in terms of the information we should be providing and inconsistent experience for new employees.

Employee Engagement

No processes in place to measure how staff are feeling. Finding out why employees leave is crucial yet only limited information is available from exit questionnaires.

6. Our Strategic approach

The Council’s vision is “to be a first class Council and lead Southend to become a vibrant coastal town”. To make progress towards our vision, it is vital the Council, as an employer, develops a quality workforce and engages with it’s employees.

The Recruitment and Retention Strategy endorses the Council’s vision, forms an integral part of the People Management strategy, builds on the existing policies and seeks to address the concerns identified in the “current state assessment”.

By seeing clear and consistent recruitment communications, people will see the Council as an organisation consistent in its thoughts and actions whilst at the same time portraying a highly professional image.

Our Strategic objectives are:-

6.1 To provide a customer focused, first class, cost effective recruitment service by:-

Building a single dedicated HR recruitment team within the corporate HR division

Developing a streamlined recruitment process with clear roles and responsibilities for HR and recruiting Line Managers.

Ensuring all recruiting Line Managers are trained in key skills including; developing appropriate Job Descriptions and Person

Specifications, valuing diversity within the workplace, awareness of appropriate legislation,


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selection methods, and providing positive and developmental feedback to all candidates, thus ensuring all candidates are treated fairly and that the Council fully embraces diversity and equal opportunities.

Making effective use of existing Technology (for example the HR database) to deliver significant cost savings, including E-recruitment

Establishing Service Level Agreements with each of the Departments. Establishing a range of management information to measure and evaluate

our success against agreed criteria. Fully exploring options for working in partnership with external providers

for part, or all, of the recruitment process. ensuring the Council has in place preferred suppliers for all appropriate

recruitment activity, and that all such recruitment activity is channelled through these suppliers.

6.2 To attract high quality candidates wanting to work for the Council by:-

Utilising ICT opportunities such as enhancing our internet pages and enabling candidates to apply on line

Working with services and the communications team to consistently promote the Council in national and technical media

Raising the profile of the Council as an employer by building relationships with local schools, colleges, appropriate Universities, minority groups, attending recruitment fares and holding open days.

Working in partnership with the Strategic Essex HR Partnership to increase awareness of opportunities within Local Government, exploring the use of Graduate Recruitment Schemes and Modern Apprenticeships.

Working closely with the Job Centre to improve the quality of the applications via this source.

Developing competency frameworks and profiles to select new employees, and identify developmental needs of new recruits.

6.3 To build employee engagement and retain key employees within the Council by:-

Working closely with the various Departmental Managers to understand their skills shortages and develop innovative succession plans to target these areas, where appropriate, developing internal training programmes to develop skills in house.

Establishing an internal job advertising scheme, enabling employees to apply for roles prior to external candidates and enabling the Council to develop succession plans.

Implementing a wide range of associated employee benefits, at zero cost to the Council, to build on the Council’s total reward package.

Regularly reviewing existing remuneration packages and benefit schemes to ensure we are competitive with other Council’s.


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Launching an Employee Recognition scheme to publicly recognise and reward achievement, important personal and team contributions and top performers and also to establish role models.

Implementing an annual Employee Opinion Survey to obtain employee feedback and input to the development of the retention strategy.

Enhancing the Council’s internal communications practices to ensure an informed workforce which has the ability to comment and influence policy and practice.

Developing the consistent and effective operation of the staff appraisal scheme

7. How will we measure the success of the strategy?

Transparency of costs, enabling the Council to understand the true cost of recruitment and staff turnover and enable Departments in the future to set realistic budgets to pay for recruitment activities.

Reduced advertising, agency and printing costs. Reduction in staff turnover. Improved Management information for the OMB capturing a range of HR

indicators. Increase in the number of internal promotions.

8. How will the strategy be implemented?

Following agreement to the strategy a detailed project plan will be produced to document the activities required to implement the strategy.

However at a high level it is proposed that:-

Refresh the Recruitment and Retention working party, to be responsible for reviewing and updating existing processes and procedures, implementing the changes, and cascading the changes within their team. To be lead by HR Services with representatives from the remaining HR departmental teams. (This formerly was the HR and Member group),

Upskilling HR teams in terms of recruitment best practice to ensure they provide a consistent, first class, service to our customers.

Work with ICT to develop the web site, and e-recruitment. Work with DMT’s to develop Service Level Agreements and HR Indicators. Work with appropriate agencies to attend four Job fares a year. Refresh training available for Line Managers responsible for recruiting and

supplement with a quick reference guide, which provides advice and guidance and clearly sets out roles and responsibilities for HR and Recruiting Line Managers.

Prepare reports for OMB to support the introduction of internal job advertising scheme, Fringe Benefits and Employee Recognition Scheme.


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Review the outputs of the Employee Opinion Survey to continue to develop the strategy.

Develop and deliver regular performance reporting to CMT and departmental customers.

Work closely with the internal communication team to improve employee communication

Review and re-launch the employee appraisal scheme.


9. High Level timescales

Q2 2005 Q4 2005Q3 2005 Q3 2006Q2 2006Q1 2006 Q4 2006

Recruitment & Retention Working Party and work with internal communications

Refresh Line Manager training

HR Upskilling

Launch on line applications and Recruitment Pages

Recruitment Fares Recruitment Fare

CMT Reports on internal job application scheme

Fringe Benefits and Recognition scheme

Employee Opinion Survey

Agree HR Indicators & SLAs

Launch on line Quick reference guide

Develop competency framework

CMT agree strategy

Refresh and re-launch appraisal scheme


APPENDIX 1CURRENT STATE ASSEMENT

Costs In the current climate of budget constraints the Council is required to manage it’s resources even more effectively. During 2004 we spent £232K on recruitment advertising, 414 employees left the organisation ( Turnover 16%) and 323 joined. Taking into consideration, the cost of advertising, management and administration time, induction and bringing up to speed, the true cost of on boarding is broadly equivalent to three months salary. Therefore the total costs of on boarding was in the region of £1.1 million.

Total recruitment costs are not transparent within the small teams and there is limited opportunity to explore efficiency savings by outsourcing or working in partnerships with private sector organisations. No budget allocated to support recruitment activities as a consequence some teams delay advertising until member of staff has left, additional costs are then incurred if agencies are required on interim basis.

Technology Each team has developed their own ways of working, which has resulted in inconsistent time consuming processes with considerable duplication and re keying of information.

Little use is made of the existing recruitment software, available on the HR system, as a consequence the process is very manual and costly and does not provide any management information. The HR system, from which we draw our workforce information, is not seen as a priority or regularly updated.

On- Line Recruitment

The current web site is not user friendly and candidates are not able to apply on line. This is restricting our ability to enable overseas candidates to apply for roles.

CIPD research indicates that 80% of recruiters use e-mail to handle applications and that over 70% of recruiters state that their main source of applicants was via the web.

In March 2004, 32,847 people visited the Council’s Job page on the Council’s Web site, by March 2005 this figure had increased to 57,093.

On line applications will enable the Council to increase the speed at which we can process applications as well as enabling greater coverage of a potential application pool.

On line applications would enable the Council to advertised 24 hours a day.

Image of Council

Competition for top talent is fierce combined with the poor image of Local Government; people do not aspire to work for the Council.

As a Council we have fallen behind our competitors, with minimum employee benefits.


Our job adverts, Job Descriptions and Person Specifications do not inspire, are wordy and dated, and prevent the Council from attracting best people for key roles.

Management Information

No management information is recorded to enable us to understand the response rates from the various advertising methods or whether we are reaching a diverse section of the community.

We obtain a very limited response to our current Exit Interview questionnaire and therefore, we lack detailed and accurate understanding on why people leave the Council. In addition no management information is obtained on why people do not apply for roles and how the process felt for those who do apply.

Customer Feedback

Recruiting Line Managers provided inconsistent feedback in terms of the support they received from the recruitment teams. Some Managers indicated that they did not feel the recruitment teams were very responsive to their needs, did not add value and were not easy to business with. Whilst other recruiting Line Managers had a more positive experience.

With a number of recruitment teams the process is confusing for applicants in terms of who they need to contact.

Training for Line Managers

Attendance on the Corporate Recruitment and Selection training event is not seen as a priority

Limited upskilling available for Line Manager and some Line Managers rely on HR presence at interviews.

Lack of understanding as to the role of HR and Line Managers in the recruitment process.

Attraction of candidates

The Council faces a perpetual struggle to attract and retain employees with key skills whilst at the same time we fail to fully market our complete employment proposition or employment opportunities within the Council.

There is no Management Information to assist Line Managers to decide which recruitment source to use and as a consequence some Line Managers simply ignore other options and resort to using the same source each time.

Internal Job Adverts, known as the Blues have a very limited response and internal candidates go through same process as external candidates. Jobs are not advertised in the first instance to current employees as this is seen to contravene equal opportunities, thus increasing our recruitment costs, and hindering our ability to retain key employees.

All roles are advertised at the Job Centre, however applicants from this source are of poor quality. Communication between the various recruitment teams and the Job Centre is ineffective, resulting in roles being advertised


with incorrect information. Teams are frequently asked to provide feedback in terms of the applications we received – this is a time consuming activity for the teams.

In the main, roles are advertised automatically in the Evening Echo, whilst specialist trade magazines are used when it is “felt” that the local papers will not be effective.

Radio campaigns are thought to be expensive and rarely used.

Jobs are advertised on the internet however, we do not currently have the facility to enable candidates to apply on line.

81% or our current workforce live within 15 mile radius of Southend. The number of ethnic employees does not reflect the ethnic make up of the community or the level of ethnic applications we receive.

39% of the work force are aged over 50 with a further 37% aged between 35 and 49, this highlights the need for succession planning and ensuring we attract younger employees into the Council.

Selection of candidates

Panel interviews main selection method, alternative selection tests designed ad hoc by recruiting Line Managers with little support from HR.

Selection tends to focus on immediate job requirements, as opposed to competencies, such as Customer Focus, driving performance, execute at speed, Commercial focus and enhancing our reputation.

In general, candidates are assessed against the Person Specification for each role. A random sample of Person Specifications from across the various recruitment teams revealed that the specifications are wordy, extremely long and do not necessarily accurately reflect the essential requirements for the role.

Line managers need to understand the importance of creating a good impression at the selection stage ( and HR processing applications) as candidates are selecting us as much as we are selecting them.

Induction There is an inconsistent approach as to the information provided to new recruits prior to joining the Council or the support provided during first few weeks.

In some cases candidates suffer from information overload, whilst others receive little or no information.


Employee Engagement

There is limited evidence to support a “grow our own culture”, as a Council we tend to buy in resource, thus pushing up our costs.

Little evidence of employee engagement.

Research indicates that it is relatively rare for people to leave jobs in which they are happy, even when offered higher pay elsewhere. Most employees have a preference for stability. This research is borne out by the information obtained for our exit questionnaire in that leavers indicate that flexible working, improved training opportunities and improved career prospects are more important than a higher salary and health benefits.

44% of the workforce has been with the Council less that 5 years, 21% over 5 years but less than 10, 25% over 10 years and less than 20, with 10% of the workforce having been with the Council in excess of 20 years. However a significant proportion of the specialist , hard to fill roles, are occupied by people who have been with the Council less than 5 years. The skills required to fill these roles are relatively scarce, the recruitment is costly and it normally take several weeks to fill these vacancies.

29% of leavers indicated that they were leaving to join a new employer of which 8% had indicated that they were moving to another authority.


APPENDIX 2

Break down of Recruitment Resources

Department Job Title Salary Average % of time spent on Recruitment

activities CT&TC Personnel assistant and office

manager£15.9k 80%

CT&TC Personnel Support assistant £13.4k 25%Technical and Environmental Services

Secretarial Assistant £17.4k 40%

Technical and Environmental Services

W P Operator £15.3k 15%


Group Manager Administration

£38.8k 5%





DSC Administrative Assistant £13k 100%DSC Administrative Assistant £13k 60%DSC Senior Personnel Officer £22.5k 3%DSC Personnel Officer £21.6k 3%DSC Asst Personnel Officer £16.2k 3%DELL HR Officer £20.1k 19%DELL HR Assistant £16.8k 57% DELL Agency Staff £13k 50% LCAS Admin Officer £21.6k 10%LCAS Snr Admin Asst £16.2k 20%LCAS Admin Asst £14.3 30%LCAS – Libraries Admin Asst £13k 10%LCAS – ST Admin Officer £17.4k 32%LCAS – ST Admin Asst £15.3k 20%LCAS Chief Admin Officer £42k 3%BT Senior Sec £16.5k 50%*

*figure taken from Job Descriptions collected as part of Job Evaluation

Recruitment activities cover:- Liaison with Recruiting Line

Manager Preparing

Advert Review JD & PS

Prepare Recruitment Packs

Sending out Packs

Shortlisting

Invites to Interview Designing Assessment

Supporting Interviews

Processing successful application

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