To receive a presentation updating the Committee on recruitment.

Shella Smith, Head of HR & Organisational Development, gave a presentation on the action that had been taken since April 2018 to improve recruitment of permanent staff at the Council.  The main issues with the current recruitment procedure that had been identified by candidates were that there was no Council employer brand, posts were not well advertised, there was a complete lack of social media presence and the application process was protracted and complicated.  Managers had concern about there being no strategic ownership of recruitment and HR provided little in the way of support for the process.  Adverts were limited to eight jobs per week regardless of business need due to resource constraints in HR and the lengthy recruitment process was time consuming and costly and was often unsuccessful in appointing permanent staff.  As a result, there was an over-reliance on agency staff, the cost of which had risen from £4.9m in 2013/14 to £14.2m in 2017/18.  It was reported that a more sustainable level of spending on agency staff would be between £5m and £6m or around 7% of the overall wage bill.

In order to address the concerns, a new team had been appointed in HR to increase skills and resource with responsibility for effectively supporting both agency and permanent recruitment.  All jobs were now advertised nationally using REED.com, social media (Facebook or LinkedIn) and the Council’s website as standard with an aim to have RBC job adverts appearing on first page of a Google search.  Candidates would shortly be able to apply by CVs with a supporting statement, which would significantly reduce the time it took to apply for a position.

There was action being taken to improve the experience of candidates, including those who had been unsuccessful to ensure they retained a positive opinion of the Council as a prospective employer.  Paperwork would be dealt with more promptly using a more streamlined approach to avoid unnecessary delay.  In addition, further work was taking place to: develop and promote the Council’s ‘employer brand’ on media channels and through the recruitment process; encourage employees to promote the Council as a place to work; develop the RBC jobs website further; roll out the HR recruitment system to managers; introduce an ‘on-boarding’ system so that new starters could access employment documents commencing employment; and help drive faster, more successful recruitment through the development of key data.

Resolved:    That Shella Smith, Head of HR and Organisational Development, be thanked for her presentation on the improvements being made to recruitment procedures to address the concerns raised at the Committee meeting held on 1 August 2018 (Minute 8 refers), which had recognised that recruitment issues were being regularly cited as a reason for non-compliance with audit recommendations.