Recruiting and Retraining Key Workers in the Public Sector
Keith Handley, Former President, The Society of Chief Person
In this article, top HR director Keith Handley, outlines his views on the way forward for local; government recruitment
Anyone working in local government will not have to be reminded that the sector is working through the most demanding period of change and renewal in recent history.
There are unprecedented demands on us from inside and outside the sector, from the government's modernisation agenda and from the expectations of our increasingly sophisticated customer base.
If local government is to deliver against this tough agenda it needs to recruit and retain the best people it can. Good public services are developed and delivered by good people with the right mix of skills, experience, imagination and attitudes - and we need these people in their hundreds and thousands if we are to succeed.
And here in lies the most important issue for local government HR today.
There is a crisis in recruitment and retention which has been creeping up on us for some years but is now beginning to be a grave concern for anyone who believes that a thriving public service is important to the health of the nation.
After turning a blind eye for some time, the sector is now realising that it has a major shortage of skills and talent in key areas. For some years there have been problems recruiting key professionals such as social workers and teachers. Now you can talk to HR people across the UK and find they have vacancies at every level in every function. In short we desperately need planners, project managers, accountant, IT people, environment health officers and even personnel officers.
There are also important demographic groups we must target. Increasingly I am hearing that councils are having difficulties attracting good quality senior managers to fill key vacancies - even authorities offering decent senior salaries of between £70-90,000 are failing to put together a credible shortlist. There are far more opportunities for a senior manager in, say, education to go out there and earn a fantastic salary, share options and benefits with a private company delivering services back to her/his council.
At the other end the lifeblood of any organisation looking to service and flourish in the long term - i.e. young people - are increasingly difficult to attract to a career in the public services. Again we are competing with other public bodies e.g. health trusts and the Army, as well as private companies, for the decreasing number of youngsters coming on to the jobs market.
Recent research carried out by HR colleagues in the North West showed that we are really failing to get the message across to what should be the chief executives, planners and personnel officers of the future. Ignorance of what local government does and the kind of jobs that are available, and a negative image of public services, is turning young people away from us.
Young people in particular are becoming much more sophisticated about how they look for work, the kind of careers and employers they would prefer and the way they want to balance their home and work lives.
If all this wasn't challenge enough for all of us working in local government personnel, the Internet has given us a new and fascinating technology, which should certainly transform the way we can target and engage with new recruits, as well as our existing employees.
We have all taken to the Internet in a big way but all too often employers are using it just to post job adverts in text and failing to use its capabilities to help promote the culture of their organisations, to establish two-way communication with potential recruits and to make the recruitment processes faster and more efficient. The challenges of all the above must be clear to us.
Using Best Value as a model, are we really challenging our approach to recruitment strategy, or searching out new ideas and best practice, even if it means learning from and working with the private sector?
It is no longer appropriate for local authorities to think they can attract good candidates by offering traditional patterns of rewards and workstyle. How can we attract a young person who wants to spend one or two years training with us before travelling the world for a year and then returning later to resume her career? How can we retain the expertise of an older worker who want a better balance of home and worklife? How do we really the harness the power of technology to provide flexible employment to experienced women who want to raise a family? How can we reward performance and recognise achievement within obvious budget restrictions?
Thirdly, how can we develop and position a strong, attractive image for local government and our individual authorities. Do we really know how recruits perceive us and how we can attract and persuade them to apply for our jobs? Do we really care about our image and have a credible marketing strategy to change and then promote it to an increasingly sophisticated constituency?
And once people do want to develop a career with us, do we provide them with the information and understanding they need? And do we make it easy for them to apply and move quickly and enjoyably through the recruitment process? Above all, how can we make our processes more effective and cheaper, and free from the deadening bureaucracy that always gives the public service a bad name?
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