Flexible and Dynamic workforce resources

• Job Profiles (JPs) – These are designed by you as a manager and therefore you can build in flexibility of approach to service delivery into the Job Profile to support service flexibility. This can be done when a role becomes vacant or in consultation with an employee or team to ensure their Job Profile reflects the role they are required to fulfil. HR and JE teams can offer advice.

       Job profile template    How To Write A Job Profile

• Job Profiles are dynamic and should be reviewed regularly to ensure they fit the needs of the role and the business. This should be reviewed at least annually as part of your appraisal conversation with team members. Any adjustments to a Job Profile should be evaluated by the Job Evaluation team to ensure that it is appropriately graded. If a manager believes a role is under graded in comparison to another role the Job Evaluation team can provide advice and support on key differences and similarities to support managers in reviewing a Job Profile. If an employee raises a grievance in relation to their grade, please read the grievance relating to post grade guidance and seek advice from your HR Business Partner

        Grievance relating to post grade

        Appraisal Guidance

• If you have built flexibility into job profiles and an employee understands and has accepted the scope of service flexibility expected, then as a manager you can deploy staff to duties or alternative locations to support service delivery as required. Please ensure that when staff have been asked to work flexibly in other locations they are paid at their substantive rate for additional/alternative work and not the bottom of the scale. If employees chose to apply for an additional post, they will be paid in line with recruitment salary guidance which is normally the bottom of the scale. Please seek advice from your HR Business Partner as required

• The Oleeo recruitment platform is in the process of being rolled out to the organisation and high-volume recruiting managers invited to training sessions. It is anticipated that this platform will resolve many of the concerns highlighted within the flexible and dynamic workforce review in relation to perceived delays in the recruitment process. The new system will be able to monitor progress and managers will have access to view where their post is in the recruitment process.

• Writing effective adverts to support the recruitment of the right people first time is important, guidance to support you in this has been included in Oleeo. The Recruitment Team is in the process of developing Recruitment Advisors who will be able to provide you with advice on specific recruitment campaigns and link in with the HR Business Partners for support where appropriate.

Oleeo Recruitment and Advert Guidance

• There are many different types of contract / amendments available to support short- and long-term flexibility; secondment, expressions of interest, honoraria, acting up, annualised hours, flexible posts which support cover from a pool. Details including the benefits of each and route to recruit into these posts are available here.

Please speak to your HR Business Partner for advice on which contract type suits your service need.

 The exemptions from permissions to recruit and the permission to recruit process, sit outside of the recruitment process. These are corporate control processes. Any concerns in relation to delays in the permission to recruit or exemptions should be flagged with your Head of Service/Director.

• Progression/career contracts can be considered to support service workforce planning and as a recruitment and retention incentive for applicants and employees. However, to safeguard the authority from equal pay risk these must be identified as an action to mitigate workforce risk within your workforce plan and agreed at the outset via an Officers Delegated Report agreed with your director due to the people and financial implications.
• There should be clear and objective parameter for progression from one grade to another

        Workforce and Succession Planning

• The Care Academi is an example of career progression pathway as attached. Employees can commence at Level 2 on Grade B knowing if they stay with the council they can progress through the programme and the pay grades and work towards completing a fully funded social work degree with the prospect of a Grade I role for at least 3 years after completion.

         Care Academi

•  All departments are encouraged to engage with the workforce planning resources available on the intranet and speak to their Lead HR Business Partner for advice.

There is a revised Probationary Policy - remember you do not have to wait for a probationary meeting to raise a concern with a new employee. If you have concerns regarding an employee’s performance and/or attendance discuss the specifics with your HR business partners at the earliest opportunity to agree best course of action in each case. You will also receive Business Alerts for Manager (BAMs) prompting you to take action at key milestones within the procedure.

Probationary Policy and Processes

• As a reminder if you have a concern about sickness absence during a probationary period this is managed via the probationary policy and not the sickness absence policy.

• All managers and departmental business support units can run a range of people reports on their direct and indirect reports using ResourceLink

Resourcelink Reporting services RRS Guidance for Managers

• Please view our refreshed intranet pages that provide our policies and guidance on a range of topics.

• Our corporate policies provide the boundaries within a legislative and good practice framework. If you have a scenario that doesn’t fit the mould, please discuss with your HR Business Partner who can advise on possible variations or solutions within the framework of a policy. e.g. last-minute grant funding becomes available in November but must be used by March 31st – depending on the circumstances policies may be ‘flexed’ with appropriate employment advice.

Occupational HealthHealth and Safety

Working for usFAQ for Managers

HR

•We are currently developing a managers induction programme to supplement the employee induction and recently launched Leadership Academi. This will provide a pathway for new managers to support them in understanding their new responsibilities and how they can access skills development to support with day-to-day people management. Please watch out in a future newsletter for further information.

Learning and Development Leadership Academi