Category: News

Gillian Bishop, Chief Executive, North West Employers Published: 08/08/2023

Irrespective of where the conversation starts within local government circles, you can almost guarantee that as part of the discussion you will end up talking about the biggest challenge that is facing us – yes, it is finances, but also our people, our workforce. The focus of the discussion centres around; where has everybody gone, why can’t we recruit, and how do we keep hold of our great people?

So why is this the case, and what can we do about it?

In terms of why this is happening there are several factors that are contributing to the grand resigns, and redesign of the workforce. From the ‘new-normal post-covid’ discussions, to the post-pandemic analysis of ‘what is it all about?’. The new Gen Z approach to working has evolved from that of the Millennial in that the outlook has transitioned to working as a means to an end instead of vice versa. Many preferring a portfolio based career with opportunities to switch activities, as well as flexible working arrangements.

This cultural shift has been compounded by the increasing competition within the private sector with the seismic shifts and growth of distribution and retail opportunities that are able to offer flexible working patterns and rates of pay that are more competitive than some of the pay rates and conditions that the local government sector is able to offer.

We are party to a range of debates and discussions focused on how we attract and retain our existing workforce and recruit and grow our future talent. We have just seen the publication of the NHS Long Term Workforce Plan, which is the first comprehensive workforce plan for the NHS putting staffing on a sustainable footing and improving patient care. It focuses on retaining existing talent and making the best use of new technology alongside the biggest recruitment drive in health service history.

Workforce planning, discussed in our recent Talent Rebels round table discussion in partnership with Gatenby Sanderson, involved several councils recognising that more focus is required in identifying critical roles and profiling the workforce, combining a range of initiatives and data analysis for a more coherent talent strategy.

At the LGA conference in Bournemouth this year, the local government Chief Executives considered what the local government equivalent of a long-term strategic approach to the local government workforce challenges and opportunities is? It is recognised that as a sector we are not a national entity, and that each local council, system and locality is different. However, it has to be said that although we can recognise and celebrate difference we can and should identify our similarities and opportunities and there can be enough common ground to enable a strategic agreeable geographical and sectoral response to one of the greatest resource challenges that we have experienced in a very long time.

So what is the art of the possible to address these challenges and opportunities? We need to develop a narrative, our elevator pitch that clearly and succinctly describes and energises our audience to the world of opportunity that local government can offer. We are surrounded by fantastic colleagues whose careers have been centred around working with, in and alongside local government over decades. However, when we are asked ‘so what do you do?’ how easy is it to describe the intricacies of what we do in our roles – not at all – so it is easier to just say “I work in local government”, but this masks the complexity and diversity of what we do and contribute. So, there is a challenge and opportunity to develop a compelling elevator pitch for local government!

This call to develop a clear narrative, and to use this as a campaign at a local, regional, and national level will assist us to clearly articulate why our young people and future talent should join us and benefit from the vast array of opportunities that the sector can offer.

Once we have attracted colleagues to join us then, how do we create the culture and environment for them to maximise their full potential? We know that there’s an amazing and innovative range of induction activities that take place within our authorities to ensure that colleagues experience a positive start to their local government journey. Once they have settled into their role, annual appraisals and regular reviews and development opportunities provide access to a range of internal and external opportunities to increase the depth and breadth of their local government experience and expertise.

We, at North West Employers, have the privilege of working with our member organisations on the co-design, delivery and evaluation of a plethora of networks, sessions, projects and programmes to retain and develop our existing talent and to recruit and secure our future talent.

Tri-Sector Challenge

One great example of our small contribution to developing the future talent in the NW is through the Tri-sector Challenge. The NW hosted its first Tri Sector Challenge in June 2023 at the Theatre of Dreams – Old Trafford.

The Tri-Sector Challenge offers a fantastic opportunity for aspiring leaders to gain exposure to issues outside of their normal work, giving them a taste of what senior management is really like. Teams from local authorities and partner organisations compete against each other as they are asked to be the Chief Executive and Senior Team of a fictional organisation in a fictional place for the day.

The day creates an opportunity for our future leaders to put themselves in the shoes of their senior team, and in a safe space allows them to identify which areas to prioritise, deal with politically sensitive issues and maintain customer focus when determining how to provide the public with the best services possible despite limited resource. Throughout the day, they will have to navigate requests for briefings from the Leader of the Council, requests for meetings from key strategic partners and deal with the media, all against the clock!

The NW had 12 teams enter the Challenge in our first year, which was a brilliant take up from our member organisations, demonstrating the commitment that our region has to talent development.

The participants had the opportunity to compete for different awards throughout the day, some they knew about, and some were a secret! From this year the winners were as follows:

We are committed to finding, securing, and supporting our existing and future talent. The Trisector challenge is just one way that we will continue to do this, and from our offer (Our Offer) and through our bespoke support we can work with and alongside our members to assist in tackling the recruitment and retention challenge and secure our future talent.

Looking forward

We will look forward to seeing our next cohort of future leaders at the Tri Sector Challenge 2024, and until then we will continue in our quest to raise the profile of local government as a career of choice, provide mentoring and coaching and a whole range of other opportunities for our colleagues to maximise their full potential.

The mantra of the All Blacks, the New Zealand Rugby Team recognised as the most successful team ever, is performance = capability x behaviour, they have 1 captain and 15 leaders with their values being humility, excellence and respect.

You can read more about when ‘you are on top of your game….change your game’ in the internationally bestselling book ‘Legacy’ by James Kerr, who provided another inspirational and thought provoking session at this year’s LGA conference. There is more to come on this when we do our book review.

Reflection Until then, there are some questions that we can consider as a sector:

1. What can be our NW Haka, our USP, our elevator pitch?

2. How do we create our plan for attraction, retention and creation of career pathways for future talent?

3. How do we develop opportunities for our future leaders to maximise their performance, capabilities and our collective capacity?

4. How do we maintain a culture of humility, excellence and respect?

Fulfilling these questions in our mind, will drive us to be the best ever just like the All Blacks. These are on our ‘to do’ list, so we will look forward to joining forces with you to drive this agenda further forward.

Thanks for reading, welcome your thoughts, join the discussion and let’s together make the Local Government Sector in the NW the place where everyone wants to be.

The Collaborative North West Partnership was delighted to welcome two north west politicians who described their inspiring and powerful leadership journeys.

Cllr Maureen Bateson MBE, Assistant Executive Member for Children & Education, Blackburn with Darwen Council

Cllr Bateson MBE has been representing her local community since 1983. She has held a range of roles including Mayor, deputy leader, chair of local labour party, working across a wide area of council services from housing to education and social services.

She described the formative parts of her life story, escaping an abusive relationship, surviving severe illnesses, living on benefits in a council house, working full time while bringing up her family and working as a councillor.  Explaining what attracted her to politics, Cllr Bateson said: “Political life is about people, this is where I felt I could do most good.”

Delivering services that reflect the communities they serve

Her life on a council estate informed her decision-making saying: “The council told people what they could have, how to live their lives. As Chair of Housing, I brought in a range of initiatives such as Tenant Boards and decentralised offices, taking the service out to the community.”

She fought internal resistance to these innovations because her lived experience told her that it was the right thing to do. She said: “I went out to meetings in the community, sometimes people were angry, but I felt it was important they should to be listened to.”

Listening to people is vital

Cllr Bateson recounted situations where council services can actually mean the difference between life and death, describing some of the most difficult incidents and the lasting repercussions that she has dealt with over her years of services.

She said: “Talking to residents first-hand is important, I’ve always made the effort to listen to people and hear their views on how services could be changed, it was a good way of making policy.”

Never missing an opportunity to support her local community, she used her position as mayor to champaign against abuse and improving services for disabled people, recognising that many people need an advocate. As a local leader, she used her network to find an alternative way to deliver youth services using an external partner when funding to the service was cut.

It’s the little things that make a big difference

She explained: “Most of what people need are the small things, they can make a big difference to people’s lives. If you’re making policy think about the about the detail, think about who it affects.”

Cllr Joanne Harding, Executive portfolio holder for Adult Social Care, Trafford Council.

Cllr Harding has been an elected member in Trafford for 11 years being shadow executive role and a committee member before taking on her portfolio role.

She said: “Being elected as a councillor is my proudest achievement.” She had been involved in community groups and was a school governor, her passion and dedication make her stand out and she was asked to become a councillor.

She grew up in Beswick in east Manchester then moved a council estate in Longsight, an inner-city area of the city. Although she explained: “Nothing can prepare you for life as a politician.” like Cllr Bateson, her family experiences inform her political life.

Authentic leadership creates trust

Cllr Harding explained that it is important when talking to fellow councillors, officers and the public to be authentic and real.

She brings skills and life experience to her role, describing her background working across health and social care sector for 25 years, with experience in managing addiction services, mental health crisis services, working with probation service and prison services.

Ask the difficult questions

She explained: “I want to change broken systems for people who come into contact with those services but also recognising how hard the staff in those services work. I am known as difficult and belligerent councillor. I was elected to represent and serve and so I have to ask those difficult questions.”

Co-productions means really involving people

Cllr Harding emphasised the importance of people who design public services not being prescriptive, explaining: “We talk about co-production but it scares people, not many members of the public attend council meeting let alone a diverse selection of the public. Are we doing the right thing or are we just ticking a box? We need to be engaging better with members of the public.”

She concluded by saying: “I want people to understand what local government is really about and how it can change lives, we need to work together with the people we are serving and not work in an echo chamber.”

Chair, Gillian Bishop, Chief Executive of North West Employers, concluded by pulling together the key leadership takeaways from Cllr Bateson’s and Cllr Harding’s powerful and inspirational stories –

• Listening to local communities and being their voice
• Being an authentic leader guided by life experiences
• Tacking issues with courage and determination
• Passion about creating services with people at the heart
• Treating people with respect and enabling true collaboration
• Bigger and better things can be achieved by partnership working

Blog by Sharon Senior, Director at North West Employers, 12 May 2021

A year ago, if I’d have asked you what comes to mind when you hear the word “hybrid”, I’m guessing the answer would have been “a car”. It’s now the phrase being widely used to describe what the future of work might look like; a combination of homeworking and working from an office or other location.

Hybrid working, new ways of working, agile working – whatever you want to call it, one thing that is for sure, is that the way we work is changing. 

As lockdown restrictions ease, most organisations are now working through how to maintain some of the flexibility that remote working has highlighted.

Whilst many employees will have experienced working exclusively remotely during lockdown, fewer will have experienced a mixed model of both remote and office-based working.  So, what does this mean in practice? I wanted to share what I’m hearing across the North West and some of my own thoughts as a leader.

What I’m Hearing

A recent BBC poll of 50 of the UK’s largest employers, collectively employing 1.1 million people, found that 43 firms planned to use a mixture of home and remote working going forward, with employees encouraged to work from home two to three days a week.  This is echoed in the conversations I’ve been having with HR colleagues across the region with the majority of councils looking at options for a two to three day a week split where possible. One more radical approach is a pilot to try out homeworking by default, with employees only going into the workplace for 1 day a week when they need to collaborate.

Many organisations are carrying out staff surveys to better understand the preferences of their workforce and it’s expected that the results might be somewhat different to views this time 12 months ago. I know from my own organisation that some people who were really reluctant to work from home initially, have now found out that they quite like it and wouldn’t necessarily want to be back in the office 5 days a week.

There’s also talk of having bands or categories of workers, depending on whether roles have to be done at a fixed site, are mobile or can be done from anywhere.

What’s Your Destination?

All of this is throwing up lots of questions that organisations need to work through if we’re to successfully evolve from the temporary response into more of a longer-term mixed model. I’m not for one minute suggesting that I have all the answers and I think that’s a really important point. As senior leaders, we need to make sure that we’re clear on what our vision for the future of work is, but how this works in practice needs support and buy-in from managers and employees alike.

If we’re to be really flexible in the way that we work, a lot depends on the culture of the organisation. There needs to be trust. Trust that I’ll get the job done when it needs to be done. Trust that my colleagues will do what they say they’ll do. Trust in each other that we’re all striving to do the best we can for the organisation and each other.

I’ve read a lot about presenteeism and how managers of remote teams worry about how they can manage performance when they can’t see their team. I struggle with this to be honest and that might be from years of having worked in jobs where I have been out on the road a lot and so haven’t always been in the same place as my team from day to day. But even in those jobs where we have worked in close proximity, I don’t spend my time monitoring what everyone is doing – it goes back to my point above; it’s about trust and managing by outcomes. Of course, there’ll always be exceptions but that’s when you need to step in and manage by exception.

The Road Ahead

The changes pose a number of immediate questions relating to people policies. Organisations are working hard to review and refresh their approaches to agile working and flexible working to develop a framework that is future proof. There’s practical consideration needed on things like workspaces, equipment and health and safety.   

Light at the End of the Tunnel

We’ve learned a lot about what’s needed to support new ways of working over the last year or so and it’s important that we hold onto this as we look to the future. We’ve made massive leaps in terms of using digital technology to keep us connected so how do we build on this and ensure we have the skills and confidence to use technology to collaborate when there are some team members working from home and others in the office together?

We understand even more the importance of social contact and our mental wellbeing so we need to give thought as to how we enable this as part of our future plans.