Agenda item

Presentation attached

The Assistant Director gave a presentation setting out the Draft People Strategy which set out where the council wanted to be over the next 3 to 5 year period.

The presentation included:

Workforce Data

Bury/GM Labour market

LGA local government context

Staff Survey - Overall positive responses – 7 in 10 colleagues recommend Bury Council as a great place to work

Plan to continue work on leadership & management development, communications and culture

Management Development Programme feedback

•      Managers are implementing and evidencing skills learned from programme.

•      Positive and receptive teams, encouraging ideas with open communication.

Focus for next phase management development is to expand to include leadership and improve:

Listening and understanding colleagues - using mentoring and coaching approach to balance challenge and support for people

Adult-to-adult relationships – enabling creativity

Building trust - creating psychological safety for colleagues

Acting with humility – empowering others

Those present were given the opportunity to ask questions and make comments and the following points were raised:

·         Councillor Gold referred to the fact that the council employs over 2500 employees so it was important to make sure that they felt engaged and empowered and 7 out of 10 stating it is a good place to work was indicative of that.

·         Councillor Gold referred to completed employee reviews and stated that it was good that the number completed was above average, but it would be good to get to 100%

·         Councillor Tariq referred to recruitment and the demographics of the workforce. He stated that there had not been progress in relation to diversity of the workforce particularly in top and middle management. Councillor Tariq asked what positive steps does the organisation take to welcome applicants from under represented groups.

Tim explained that work was ongoing to ensure successful recruitment. The dual challenge was to improve the diversity in the workforce to reflect the population that we serve and to also understand better who we employ as 63% of the Bury workforce are Bury residents.

It was suggested that the Employment Panel receive an update in relation to recruitment at a future meeting of the Panel.

·         Councillor Vernon asked what priorities were put on carer progression within the workplace.

Tim reported that more could be done in relation to this and it was something that is being reviewed. It was currently be looked at departmental workforce planning.

A Management Development Programme had recently been undertaken that had been completed by 400 colleagues  and had provided all that attended the skills to support and grow their teams.

A  leadership programme was due to be rolled out in the new year  and there were a number of apprenticeship options through the apprenticeship levy.

·         Councillor Gold asked if there was internal communication/notices for jobs.

It was explained that there was an internal comms for jobs and that we would employ internally where possible.

·         Councillor Tariq referred to the recent staff survey and asked for key highlights.

Tim reported that Health and Adult Care had come out as the exemplar in terms of staff engagement with very positive feedback.

45% of the workforce had completed and it was felt that his was due to how the survey was communicated and the layout and contents. It was also explained that the Communications team had had a lot of input into promoting the survey and providing a number of access options.

It was explained that a leadership conference was due to be held to review that data and plan ahead.

It was agreed:

That the update be noted.