Events

Date: 26/02/2020

At this event, we were joined once again by the DPER OPS2020 team. The focus of the session was ‘Strategic Workforce Planning’.

As part of the session, a team from the Property Registration Authority, whose CEO Liz Pope is an ACESA member,  presented on their experience, having developed their approach to Strategic Workforce Planning over the last number of years.

Liz Pope was joined for the presentation by her colleagues Aileen McHugh (Head of Operations) and Jean Murray (HR Manager). A copy of their presentation can be downloaded here: Presentation to ACESA Briefing February 2020 on Strategic Workforce Planning.

After the presentation, feedback was sought from the attendees, a summary of which can be found below:

TABLE 1

 

Q.1.   Your Experience of Strategic Workforce Planning to date?

• Some members have done SWFP, some have not. Some have done work force planning but not as “strategically” as the PSR.
• All members’ experience is that we have both the ability and the desire to do the qualitative and quantitative evaluations required. We know which posts we would like to suppress because they are no longer relevant and which new posts we would like to create to meet the changing environment in which we must work and to future-proof our agencies in line with our Strategic Goals.
• We have the ability and desire to work with stakeholders – line departments, unions, DPER, and the public appointments service, to deliver SWFP across the state agency sector.

 

The obstacles to translating any workforce plans into action (strategic or otherwise) have all related to a lack of authority and flexibility, even within a pay budget:

• Lack of delegated sanction;
• Overall staff numbers (WTE) are set externally;
• Lack of appreciation in line departments that we mujst be able to hire at pay grades that match the specials skills we are often looking for in our sector;
• The civil and public sector devotion to hierarchy i.e. it is never envisaged that a highly skilled specialist employee might be paid more than their line manager and therefore never allowed – even if this is what’s right for the organisation.
• Often, SWFPs submitted to line departments have disappeared into a black hole and not progressed due to the line department not engaging with the subject.
• For agencies that are Offices within a Department, though independent, there can be a complete lack of any authority over filling existing posts that immediately undermines any attempt at even basic work force planning.
• Many agencies have been assigned more functions without any additional resources or assigned increasingly complex roles without any recognition of the new skillsets required.

 

Q.2.   Key challenges you see in mainstreaming Strategic Workforce Planning in your organisation?

 

• Acceptance of principle of SWFP across Departments for all offices and agencies.
• Cultural shift away from old fashioned hierarchy and a one-size fits all approach – particularly in organisations with specialist roles.
• Bringing Unions to the table.

 

Q.3.   Ideas of how we can support and promote the mainstreaming of Strategic Workforce Planning across the public sector?

 

Very much along the lines of discussions at the workshop on ACESA’s strategy:

• Advocate a consistent key message to DPER and Departments that the “one size fits all public sector reform approach to SWFP does not work for (smaller) specialist organisations across the state agency sector”.
• Map the diversity in the state agency sector (data already captured by annual survey?) Provide examples of how the current one size approach leads to unhelpful outcomes and, at worst, harmful outcomes.
• Showcase examples of successful SWFP in the state agency sector: show what we can do and achieve given the authority to do so and a framework that allows and provides for the diversity of agency organisations.

 

TABLE 2

WHAT HAS BEEN YOUR EXPERIENCE OF STRATEGIC WORKFORCE PLANNING TO-DATE?

(Have you undertaken SWFP?)

• Experience by group has been mixed. It was agreed it was a critical process for any organisation to carry out and implement. Some had completed SWP, others were in the process.
• The key frustration like with the fact that when organisations complete SWPs, they are ignored by their funding department, comments passed by participants where it’s like it disappears into a big black hole or a deep pond never to be seen or acknowledged again.
• There were many time-wasting stories heard by me, some CEOs felt threatened and bullied following submission of such plans and in particular if they tried to follow up on what they submitted.
• Some were told they need to “learn who their friends are”, others stopped being invited to events in their funding department
• Some agencies have written to their funders stating that they will be unable to deliver on critical services, if staff are not appointed or the posts sanctioned

THE KEY CHALLENGES YOU SEE IN MAINSTREAMING STRATEGIC WORKFORCE PLANNING IN YOUR ORGANISATION?

• See above, however despite the above, there has been some very limited successes in organisations in implementing SWP. Many CEOs felt they were walking a fine line and will look for forgiveness after the fact.
• There was huge frustration at my table regarding the lack of a whole of government approach to SWP.
• There was an acknowledgement that there are good staff in some departments, however when it comes to get decisions from senior staff members, it just does not happen.
• Following the submission of SWP to funding department, there is a responsibility on agencies to implement, however, scenarios have arisen that when agencies try to follow through on plans agreed by departments, staff sanction or staff are not provided, resulting in very negative outcomes in the agency- work not being delivered and low staff morale.

 

IDEAS IN HOW WE CAN SUPPORT AND PROMOTE THE MAINSTREAMING OF STRATEGIC WORKFORCE PLANNING ACROSS THE PUBLIC SERVICE?

• Use a whole of government approach
• Breakdown the silos within government departments and between government departments. Could a more collaborative approach with agencies be adopted
• Stop using the term “Parent Department” we are not children
• Many agencies do not have any delegated sanction for posts, this should be reviewed, and agencies should have more autonomy in recruiting and appointing staff, especially at less senior grades.
• There should be a consistency of approach from all government depts and there should be more transparent processes. The role of DPER as leaders in driving SWP should enable consistency in approach
• Individual blockers in Government departments should either be removed or dealt with appropriately,

TABLE 3

What has been your experience of Strategic Workforce Planning to date? (Have you undertaken SWFP?)

• Very mixed within the group and largely dependent on the size of the organisation and there was an absolute contrast between larger organisations with developed HR functions and smaller ones without those function.
• One larger organisation noted that it had a Strategic Workforce Plan Sub Committee reporting to its Board – this was very much the exception rather than the norm.
• There was strong support for shared HR services for smaller organisations.
• One organisation is going through a Workforce Plan at the moment with the benefit of consultants.
• It was observed that there is benefit in splitting the Workforce Plan from the staffing / organisational structure.

What are the key challenges you see in mainstreaming strategic workforce planning in your organisation?

• It is very difficult to get to where you want to when there are fires constantly burning.
• We need to change the mind-set so that there is a constant drive for efficiency and to be able to do more work.
• We need to change mind-sets within our organisations – it was noted that quite a few round the table would still talk about vacancies.
• We need to fix the absenteeism.
• We need to be better at assessing the capability and assessing the requirements.
• We should recognise the value of having strong HR expertise – it should be regarded as s speciality.
• It was acknowledged that strategic workforce planning needs to full support of the Management / Leadership team.
• A point was made that we need outside support to change mind-sets and cultures though it was also pointed out that this was the Leadership Team’s job to do.

Ideas of how we can support and promote the mainstreaming of strategic workforce planning across the public service?

• DPER, being the centre of expertise, should be bringing its knowledge out to the organisations to a much greater extent than it is.
• There is also the potential to either develop centralised support e.g, a toolkit, or to market one if there is one already there. No one at the table was aware of any such toolkit being in existence.
• The further away you are from DPER, the less influence you have and the less communication you get.
• There continues to be significant problems with recruitment – examples were given of the difficulties recruiting and retaining staff working in the IT space, notably in the IT development space but it was also noted that requiring new entrants to the technical grades to come in on the first point on the salary scale was simply unrealistic in certain cases.

TABLE 4

What has been your experience of strategic work force planning

 

• NTA – 2 years of same
• Solas – yes but not as strategic as presentation

Other members still rather operational

Key challenges in maintaining workforce planning

• Lack of support by parent department
• Internally getting people to think strategically rather than pitching for resources or using it to seek more staff

Ideas to support the mainstreaming of strategic workforce planning

• Require parent departments to support same rather than block
• Identify the big skill gaps and create strategic response, rather than people being recruited into one organisation and then leaving for another
• Outsourcing to get skills
• Parent department support

ENDS