Issue - meetings

INFORMATION NOTE OF THE HUMAN RESOURCES SERVICES MANAGER

To update the Joint Staff Consultative Committee on the progress made in the last quarter completing HR work and projects and supporting people issues.

The Human Resources Services Manager presented the Information Note entitled ‘HR Update’.

Audio recording – 7 minutes 19 seconds

The Human Resources Services Manager presented the Information Note entitled ‘HR Update’ and highlighted the following:

·       There was a new Key Performance Indicator (KPI) for recruitment and this was shown in the table at paragraph 3.2 of the report.

·       There were fewer vacancies in the period April to June compared to 2023.

·       There had been 3 unfilled vacancies. These were, for the Senior Environmental Health Officer, IT Helpdesk Support Officer and the Information Officer.

·       Work was ongoing with the recruitment team to fill these vacancies and two of the roles had now been readvertised as career graded positions.

·       There would be a launch of the National Recruitment Campaign in November which would highlight a variety of Local Authority careers. The campaign will be supported by social media adverts and would run alongside the current recruitment branding.

·       Staff turnover had been below 9% since April 2024.

·       Union balloting was ongoing for industrial action regarding the national pay bargaining and an update was expected in late October.

·       Since 2013 there had been 81 apprentices hired, of which 35 were employed after completing their apprenticeships and 19 were still working for North Herts.

·       Two graduates had commenced employment with the Council under the National Graduate scheme, and they would be rotate between 4 departments, spending 6 months in each area.

·       Positive feedback had been received for the new Learning and Development systems which was launched in July and included mandatory training modules as well as bite sized learning.

·       A Digital and Data Academy had been launched alongside a specialist training provider and 20 members of staff had signed up for various courses.

·       The September Inclusion group discussed the inclusion-based staff survey and neurodiversity in the workplace. They also marked National Inclusion week with a webinar, personal development morning and updated E-learning tools.

·       Staff absences had decreased over the summer months and HR continued to support managers and staff absent with mental health or chronic health conditions.

The Service Director – Resources provided an update on the staff survey and highlighted the following:

·       Staff members had received two feedback sessions on the survey results and work was ongoing with various groups to look at the consistency of the results and any trends from comments.

·       The plan was to share action plans with staff in December or January highlighting general and specific actions.

·       2% of staff had responded to the survey stating that they did not feel safe in the workplace.

·       15% of staff felt that the organisation did not care about their wellbeing.

·       Work was ongoing to address the work safety concerns, however as the survey was anonymous this was not straight forward. Staff had been reminded that help was available from their managers, senior managers and through emailing HR help.

·       The survey highlighted that the Leadership team were thought of as inaccessible and work had commenced on addressing this.

·       There would be continued use of the intranet to increase staff awareness and inclusion.

·       There were positive  ...  view the full minutes text for item 12