Agenda item

To receive a report from the Director of People and Organisation providing the Annual Workforce Report for 2022/23 for discussion.

The Committee received a report from the Director of People and Organisation (item 7 in the minute book) on the Annual Workforce Report for 2022/23, which provided a high-level overview of key workforce data (excluding schools) and the relevant trends to inform the Council’s workforce strategies and priorities.

The officer summarised the report, highlighting that the overall headcount in workforce had increased, but recruitment and retention remained a challenge.

During questions on the report, Members learned the following:

Attract

·         Ethnicity new employment data was still being looked at and more details would return to Committee once this had been analysed.

·         Regarding positive discrimination, it was important to have the right candidate in the right role and Members were pleased to learn that the attraction and recruitment process followed the correct standards at all levels across the organisation.

·         Statistics around the applicant rate would be looked at further and provided to Committee

Resource

·         There were strict rules around overseas recruitment and the policy had changed within the past six months to better reflect national guidance.

·         Further details would be looked at regarding where overseas workers were from, including those from Ukraine and Eastern Europe

Onboarding

·         Further work would be conducted around employees that leave within the first three months and a benchmarking exercise undertaken against other neighbouring authorities.

·         More investigation would be done to learn the types of roles people had moved to internally within the organisation to see whether there were any patterns.

Develop

·         The Firefly was oversubscribed and very popular and apprenticeships continued to be developed. Further investigation would be done regarding the approach to neurodiversity within the Firefly programme.

Reward and Recognise

·         There had been an 11% decrease in Special Recognition Award (SRA) payments, yet over 99% of the workforce were felt to be working at a high level. Further work would be done around SRA’s as only 10% were received by those in a grade A-D role.

·         The percentages around high performance would be broken down further

Progress and Perform

·         Following government advice, proof was no longer required to confirm a case of Covid, which had shifted the balance of sickness related to Covid compared to ENT (ear, nose and throat).

·         A sicknote was always requested after five working days, and trigger points on the IBC enabled sickness discussions to be had with employees.

·         Neonatal/compassionate leave was tracked, but not through sickness absence. Other reasons for leave would be broken down according to the nature of the leave and provided to Committee

Retain and Exit

·         Average time in post at HCC was 9 years, but only 18% of leavers had completed questionnaires providing an insight into their reasons for leaving. Managers were continuing to encourage people to complete the form as it was useful to know whether there were areas that needed further work to improve retention. There was no indication in the questionnaires received that there was bad health within HCC or that it was not a good employer. 

RESOLVED

The Employment in Hampshire County Council (EHCC):

a)    Reviewed the content of the Annual Workforce Report (Annex One)

b)    Noted the progress of the actions so far and next steps.