Recruitment and Retention Strategy - July 2024

2. Our Recruitment and Retention Challenges

2.1 Attracting quality candidates

Difficulty sourcing people with the right level of experience and qualifications to perform at the required level is perceived as a concern for departments, spending time processing applicants that are not appointable.

2.2 Retention

Turnover of staff is part of the employment lifecycle, but not all turnover is necessary. To reduce recruitment costs and retain our skilled staff it's important that we understand the reasons for not retaining staff and the actions that can be taken to reduce unnecessary turnover.

2.3 Linking workforce plans to workforce recruitment

There is inconsistency in the application of the Authority’s workforce planning framework across the organisation. This is a key tool in determining departments short- and long-term service delivery plans.

2.4 National recruitment shortages

Over the last few years there have been national shortages in the fields of care, social work, planning, teaching and HGV drivers. We will continue to see periods where there are national shortages in specific areas of work. There are significant factors that will influence this including the economic climate, immigration policies, education systems, and changes in social attitudes towards certain professions. These factors collectively influence the availability of workers, making some roles more susceptible to shortages.

2.5 Competition from others

We are competing for some roles with neighbouring Authorities, NHS and the retail, tourism and hospitality sectors.

There are several sectors that are competing for small pools of talent, for example, in the case of care workers there are enough prospective candidates however, this pool of potential candidates will also be attracted to work in other sectors because of equivalent pay with less responsibility.

2.6 High agency usage

In many areas we rely on agency staff to provide the services we deliver. Areas of high agency use can be seen in the following roles:

• Residential carers
• Grounds and cleansing operatives
• Refuse Loaders and drivers
• Cleaners
• Teachers and Teaching support roles

Relying on agency staff comes at a significant cost and leaves us with uncertainty on whether those roles can be filled and subsequently that the service will be delivered.

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