Gordon McFarlane – PPMA

Our Conference is on its Way… 24-26 April 2024, Birmingham Conference & Events Centre

PPMA — Wed, 27 Mar 2024 15:04:02 +0000

Hello PPMA members and friends

Another year has flown by, and it’s hard to believe that our 2024 annual conference is imminent. It’s being held at the Birmingham Conference and Events Centre on the 24th to 26th April 2024.

I’m hugely grateful to my colleagues on the PPMA board who have worked hard to put the conference together. We’re preparing to celebrate another great year, thinking about some fantastic individual and team achievements, and recognising our stars now and stars of the future.

As an association, we’ve continued to go from strength to strength, with membership increasing. We’ve tried to ensure that what we bring you throughout the year is current and topical, and also value for money. Our talent programmes have been hugely popular with record numbers of applications, and I’ve been privileged to meet and work with some fantastic individuals and groups throughout the year.

As ever, we’ve sought to ensure that at the conference, there’s a mix of inspiring and thought-provoking speakers and interactive breakout sessions, and we’ve focused on really relevant topics. We’ve got sessions on leadership, disruption, key workforce challenges, flexible working, healthy workplaces, peak performance and resilience, bad banter, the image of local government, happiness at work and AI. There should be something for everyone.

Our conference is a real opportunity to take time out from our busy and demanding day jobs – to network, to celebrate the great work and achievements over the last 12 months, and to broaden our thinking, not just regarding issues that we face now, but also how our sector and our profession are likely to change in the future.

Places at the conference are filling up, and booking details and the agenda are on the PPMA website. The Gala Dinner and Awards evening is a chance to properly acknowledge and highlight the best of our profession, and with the theme this year being ‘a night at the circus’, there’s a great chance for creativity as well as celebration!

I look forward to seeing many of you in Birmingham.

Gordon McFarlane, President – PPMA

Six Observations from my time as PPMA President – by Gordon McFarlane

PPMA — Mon, 18 Mar 2024 12:42:18 +0000

Hello PPMA members and friends

The time is now very close for our current President Gordon McFarlane to hand over the reigns to incoming President Pam Parkes. Last week The MJ published an article written by Gordon about his time at the helm of this great Association . You have done a fantastic job Gordon and we will definitely miss you, but are delighted that you have agreed to stay on as a board member!

Here is the article:

Next month, at the PPMA conference, my term as president ends and I will pass the baton to the new president. Ahead of that, I’d like to share some reflections on what I have learned over the past two years, as encouragement to the PPMA community and to all colleagues working across our public services, to continue the great work you are doing.

Without doubt, my proudest achievement has been to champion the people that lead and support our workforce. Public services is nothing without its people and people managers. Sometimes, the connection between good quality public services and the people that deliver them is not recognised or appreciated. We are all human, and it can be tough hearing and reading about criticism from sources who don’t necessarily understand the daily challenges our colleagues on the frontline face as they deliver services.

Against this challenging backdrop my first reflection is about the power of the PPMA community. It has been an honour to work with colleagues who are committed to sharing best practice, solutions, ideas, and support for one another. PPMA membership has grown by more than 40%, enabling us to multiply the power and reach of this support, and to increase our visibility and influence.

Second, it has been a joy to witness the impact that the PPMA’s talent development programmes have on individuals, enabling them to flourish and grow. Whether participants are early career or aspiring to operate at Director level, all benefit as much from the peer support network they develop as they do from the formal learning content. Over the years, participants have gone on to achieve great things. I always leave these events reassured that the future of HR is in good hands.

Third, there’s no blueprint to respond to the ever-evolving challenges we face. Our workforce must be creative and agile to respond to emerging technology, AI, and changes to the way we deliver services. I believe a critical strength of the HR/OD community is its willingness to share, adapt and learn from best practice. Whether that’s through PPMA webinars, newsletter, roundtables or entering for the PPMA awards, I encourage all members to contribute to this continuous exchange of learning.

Fourth, strengthening our relationships across other public sector membership bodies – West Midlands Employers, SOCITM, HPMA, UHR, CIPD – is enabling us to broaden our thinking, reach and collective power. These connections will become even more important as we embrace AI, new technology and continue to transform the way we deliver public services.

Fifth, we are delivering services in the toughest financial environment I have seen. With the current focus on cost control, we must not lose sight of the need to invest in the development of workforce. From Covid and throughout the cost-of-living crisis, our attention has rightly been focused on responding to short term emergencies. If we are to overcome the current skills and workforce shortages, we must lift our heads, look further ahead, and stand firm in our commitment to retain, develop and support staff.

Sixth, together, we have a collective responsibility to counter unwarranted, negative narrative relating to the public sector in the media. Taking time out from our busy days to promote and celebrate our successes might feel like a low priority but has such an important impact on public perception.

Finally, my sincere thanks to everyone that has supported me through my presidency, and that continues to make the PPMA community the tower of support that it is. I look forward to passing the baton to Pam Parkes, who will bring her deep insight and experience as an Executive Director, People & Transformation at Essex County Council, and Commissioner at Birmingham City Council, to champion the workforce agenda. The future of the PPMA is in safe hands.

Gordon McFarlane – Assistant Director, Leicestershire County Council and President, PPMA

4 Ways Apprenticeships Support Business and People Goals

PPMA — Tue, 13 Feb 2024 07:44:03 +0000

Hello PPMA members and friends

Last week was National Apprenticeship Week and to celebrate and support this our President, Gordon McFarlane penned an article for The MJ. As there’s lots of useful information in it we thought we’d share here too.

With lateral thinking, councils can use apprenticeships to support a diverse range of business and people priorities. Here’s a summary of innovative ideas recently shared at HR Director roundtables in Sheffield and Manchester, for councils to identify further opportunities to drive value from the apprenticeship levy.

First, identify ways in which apprenticeships can be used to support business goals. At Leicestershire County Council, we’ve set up a working group to do this and their findings will feed into our workforce plans.

Other councils are using the levy to prepare young people who are coming out of the care system for the world of work. In cases where councils can offer a permanent role, the apprenticeship also supports employability goals, and longer term should reduce ongoing welfare support costs for care leavers.

Similarly, a number of councils are using the levy to train early years practitioners and managers to help address the early years workforce crisis that threatens to derail the government’s 30 hours childcare pledge.

Elsewhere, colleagues are exploring how to maximise the levy transfer allowance rather than return unused payments. Ideas include transferring the council’s own allowance to community wealth creation projects and asking suppliers who offer apprenticeships to transfer their allowance to councils. In many ways this is a win-win scenario that would help suppliers create social value.

The second opportunity is to use apprenticeships to support workforce planning. Short term, they are an effective way to address chronic shortages in hard to fill roles, reduce reliance on temporary workers and prevent contingent workforce costs spiralling out of control. For example, in Leicestershire, we have used the levy to fund social work degree apprenticeships in adults and childrens. Other councils have similar offers to fill shortages in waste, transport, and environmental roles.

Longer term, apprenticeships create an attractive employee value proposition to counter negative perceptions about working in local government. An apprenticeship offers a structured and measured approach to learning on the job, together with a commitment from the council to nurture and develop the apprentice. There are benefits that appeal to both experienced returners and early career candidates.

As part of wider branding and marketing, councils should consider how to effectively communicate their commitment to apprenticeships to potential candidates. I look forward to the findings from the current LGA pilot designed to identify what support councils need to promote careers in local government.

In the meantime, every council can work with local schools, colleges, and universities to increase awareness of the wide range of roles available and the opportunity for students to earn while they learn. Unexpectedly, Love Island offers a valuable lesson in attracting younger candidates! A reliable source tells me that interest in training to become a social worker spiked following the revelation that one of the contestants was a social work apprentice! Whatever your views on the programme, it illustrates that to engage young adults we need to communicate through their preferred media and channels.

With respect to reaching returners and experienced candidates, a number of councils have shown the power of community outreach to increase applications for council jobs from residents. Councils are sending HR colleagues out into the community to raise awareness and ask people that express an interest to sign up then and there for an interview.

Third, with leadership development a high priority, councils are using the levy to fund leadership development programmes, which is a smart response to a challenging budget situation. Again, I think there is more we can be doing internally to promote higher, degree, and masters level apprenticeships

Finally, nominate an apprentice for the PPMA’s Apprentice of the year award. We offer two awards. One for intermediate / advanced apprenticeships, the other high/degree apprenticeships. In addition to showing your organisation values apprentices, we’ve designed the programme to be a great learning opportunity for nominees to grow in confidence and nurture networks critical for personal development. Applications for this year’s programme are now closed but you can check out the PPMA website for further details.

There are many ways HR can utilise apprenticeships to support strategic business and people priorities. Whether that’s to address the early years recruitment crisis or develop senior managers for leadership, apprenticeships have a vital role to play.

Gordon McFarlane

PPMA President and Assistant Director, Leicestershire County Council

Our Profession – Reflections from 2023 and the Priorities and Challenges for 2024 from PPMA President Gordon McFarlane

PPMA — Tue, 02 Jan 2024 12:33:55 +0000

Hello PPMA members and friends

As we enter a new year and are looking forward to 2024, I just want to briefly reflect on the challenges for, and achievements of, our profession over the course of 2023.

Throughout the year our agenda spanned the breadth of HR/OD activity and we’ve faced many challenges – both from an operational and a strategic perspective. And there’s much to be applauded with many steps forward, along with some inevitable drawbacks too, but all in all, our profession is one I’m certainly proud of and privileged to be part of.

As an Association, we’ve grown our membership significantly over the year and we’re delighted to say that we’ve had record numbers of colleagues taking part in our talent programmes, run many and varied webinars and we’ve had a number of face to face round table discussions in conjunction with our sponsors and partners. In readiness for the next 12 months, we already have a packed and exciting agenda of events planned for 2024 and we look forward to sharing that with you soon.

Thinking about priority areas for the profession in 2024, our recent Priorities and Challenges membership survey demonstrated that the agenda remains broad, but that many colleagues anticipate that they will do more work on strategic and long-term workforce priorities this year – this is really heartening after a couple of years of having to be very reactive. Examples of future priorities are leadership & management development, workforce and succession planning and EDI. If you haven’t already seen the results of our survey, you can read the full survey findings here.

As I mentioned above, we’ve already started work on our plans for 2024, but I’d like to draw your specific attention to a couple of our calendar highlights, firstly the 2024 PPMA Excellence in People Management Awards are open for entries and it’s free for PPMA members. There are 15 fantastic categories to choose from, but you don’t have long because they close on Friday 26th January. Here’s a brief summary of the awards:

The highlight of our events year is the PPMA Annual Conference and this also includes the Gala Dinner and award winner presentations. It’s going to be held in Birmingham at the Birmingham Conference and Events Centre and spans over 3 days from late morning on Wednesday 24^th to lunchtime on Friday 26^th April 2024.

This conference is all about practical learning, sparking fresh ideas, and building connections, so why not join us us for three days of insight, practical knowledge, and networking opportunities. All of the booking information is on the PPMA website and an early bird booking discount is still available until 31st January!

Here’s a taster of what to expect!

On behalf of the PPMA board I would like to say ‘thank you’ to our wonderful members, sponsors, partners and friends for your support in 2023 and wish you a Happy New Year … here’s to a positive 2024!

Gordon McFarlane, PPMA President

A Christmas Message From Gordon McFarlane

PPMA — Thu, 21 Dec 2023 06:54:27 +0000

Hello PPMA members and friends

It doesn’t seem 5 minutes since I was writing a post as we approached Christmas 2022!

It’s tempting to pen a very similar message about how busy we’ve all been, the challenges we’ve all faced …because we certainly have. But I also want to briefly reflect that from a PPMA perspective, we’ve gone from strength to strength, with increased number of members and organisations, creating far more reach within the profession. And this will continue next year.

In the meantime, I want to wish you all a restful, peaceful and well deserved Christmas break. Recharge your batteries – there’s lots of interesting transformational change to get your teeth into in 2024!

Gordon McFarlane, PPMA President

Let’s Talk Talent – HR Rising Star and ONE TO WATCH

PPMA — Mon, 12 Jun 2023 05:40:53 +0000

Hello PPMA member and friends

In a world where we are all battling with short-term, immediate and often urgent workforce challenges, we need to also create space to focus on the long-term. It’s hard to do, with uncertainty as to how fast moving change will shape the future, but it’s really important to do.

Investment in learning & development, in growing our own, and in the practical aspects of our medium and long-term workforce and succession plans is really important. Of course there are risks that some people will thank us for their newly gained skills and qualifications and go elsewhere, but this risk is far outweighed by the long-term benefits we get of upskilling, developing and retaining great staff.

There is renewed and increasing focus on apprenticeships, graduate programmes and other ‘grow your own’ schemes. These are long-term investments that should sit as part of a wider recruitment and retention strategy or plan. Talent programmes delivered in the right organisational context can also help with increasing buy in and commitment from participants, and if combined with development plans, they can be powerful tools.

At the PPMA we have run talent programmes for our HR community for a number of years, and we really believe in the importance of giving people opportunities together with space to grow and develop. We’re just about to run our ONE TO WATCH (targeted at those who are in the early stages of their HR careers) and HR Rising Star (for people looking to move into a more senior role) programmes for 2023, and I’ve been privileged to work with two groups last year and to see the amount of learning and personal development and growth that took place in the space of only two days together. Our apprenticeship programme draws apprentices from all parts of local government, and finally, our Peer into the Future programme is aimed at future HR Directors. Every time we run these talent programmes, it confirms to me that the future of local government and of HR is in safe hands.

The closing date for applications for ONE TO WATCH and HR Rising Star is Thursday 15th June and you can find out more on our website.

Gordon McFarlane, PPMA President

Reflections on the PPMA Annual Conference from President Gordon McFarlane

PPMA — Wed, 03 May 2023 07:08:43 +0000

Hello PPMA members and friends

So that was #PPMAHR23! Another PPMA conference with an eclectic mix of speakers, breakout sessions, networking and a fantastic celebration of talent together with a focus on achievements over the last 12 months.

From my perspective, we wanted to create an agenda that appealed to the widest possible audience. A number of speakers talked about the future of work, artificial intelligence and its impact not just on HR but also on work generally, the latest HR trends and also organisational resilience. As a profession, we need to be aware of the trends, of fast moving change and innovation – if we’re not careful, it will just happen around us!

We also heard from existing Chief Executives who shared with us their journeys, experiences, what has shaped their careers, and what kind of leaders they are – really inspiring stuff with lots for us all to consider.

We had a couple of sessions on hybrid working, and whilst we know it’s here to stay and we’re all implementing it, we’re still on a journey, and creating the right culture, thinking about the type of leadership needed are all still priorities.

The end of day 2 saw us showcasing our talent programme winners – a fantastic emotional session with personal stories and journeys, leading to the conclusion that the future of HR and of local government will be in safe hands.

The breakout sessions provided an opportunity for engagement on a range of topics including from menopause support in the workplace, wellbeing and resilience through nutrition, support for care leavers and also an update on the Integrated Care System.

The gala dinner was an opportunity to celebrate the best of our profession from over the last 12 months, and congratulations to all our award winners, but also to all those who were shortlisted. We were expertly compered by Ian Thomas, Town Clerk and Chief Executive of the City of London Corporation, and we also had fantastic entertainment during the evening, although the less said about one or two of the ‘guest’ bhangra dancers, the better! You can see the fill list of award winners and highly commended entrants on our website.

Grateful thanks to the board, to our sponsors, exhibitors and to all of you who were able to attend the conference and make it what it was. All of the photos, videos, speaker slides etc will be available on our website soon.

See you next year – watch this space for details!

Gordon Mcfarlane, PPMA President

#PPMAHR23 Is Almost here and PPMA President Gordon McFarlane is Looking Forward to the Event.

PPMA — Mon, 24 Apr 2023 15:12:35 +0000

Hello PPMA members and friends

With only a few days to go now, I’m really looking forward to this year’s PPMA conference at the Hilton Birmingham Metropole.

We’ve got a fantastic array of inspiring speakers, covering a diverse range of topical issues and challenges that our profession faces. In addition, we’ve got a number of interactive breakout events, so there is plenty to choose from.

One of the highlights of the Conference is of course our gala dinner and awards evening and we’ve got record numbers attending this year. The evening has a theme of ‘A Night at the Movies’ and I can’t wait for us to be able to celebrate the fantastic achievements from throughout our profession over the last 12 months and applaud their hard work and the difference it has made

Our aim is to make this sell out conference as attractive and thought provoking to as many HR & OD colleagues as possible. There will be lots of opportunities for networking, relaxing, and to just spend time with like minded HR professionals and If you’re booked to attend, enjoy and make the most of these unique opportunities!

We truly hope that you will return to your offices refreshed and inspired.

Hope to see you there!

Gordon McFarlane, PPMA President

Supporting Effective Hybrid Working

PPMA — Wed, 15 Mar 2023 15:26:09 +0000

Hello PPMA members and friends

PPMA President, Gordon McFarlane’s latest article written for the MJ and published last week is an inciteful piece on hybrid working. In it he sets out 5 design principles to help ensure hybrid working can deliver effective services and a better experience for employees. It’s a great article so we thought we’d share it again as a blog post.

“Popular with employees, hybrid working is becoming a permanent fixture of local government. As organisations work out how to deliver effective services through this model,there are three common tensions from colleagues in our HR community. These are: mismatched expectations around workplace presence and optimal use of buildings from some elected members, balancing the flexibility staff want with service delivery priorities and managing staff wellbeing and performance in a distributed workforce.

These tensions matter because they pose a material risk to the integrity of the services we deliver, and all impact on employee engagement at a time when competition for talent is tight.

While there is no right way to evolve a hybrid organisation, I believe incorporating five design principles will help ensure new ways of working can deliver effective services while creating a competitive employee experience.

The first is developing a shared mindset across the organisation that cultural change is key to effective hybrid working.

Lockdown showed that having the right kit enabled staff to work from home but didn’t make up for impaired collaboration, relationships or wellbeing or disruption to work processes. Cultural change can only be effective if the people, IT and property elements are truly integrated.

Second, we need to frame communications in this context.

To work effectively, hybrid working requires a change of mindset for leaders and workers around performance management, collaboration within teams and across services, and staff wellbeing.

Tailoring solutions to different teams is a third imperative. One-size-fits-all solutions will not be effective because every team works differently, shaped by business needs and how they interact with other services. To get hybrid working ‘right’ requires input from all stakeholders to tackle what is a multi-faceted challenge.

A fourth necessity is working with each team, including team members, managers and service delivery partners to map out what they need to work effectively. Here, you must balance the needs of the business, good working relationships, collaboration and the behaviours that drive effective ways of working, as well as location and technology. Staff are more likely to support a solution they have co-created, that as a result makes sense to them.

Finally, we must invest in reskilling managers to support and engage teams in dispersed locations. Working from home can be isolating for individuals and hard for managers to spot any dips in morale.

We need to build the knowledge, skills and behaviours they need to help their people thrive in a hybrid environment – support their wellbeing, build a community, manage performance, team dynamics, onboard new joiners, communication.

We must then learn how to improve by establishing channels for managers to share best practice across the organisation as well as learning from what has not worked.

Allied to this, we need to help staff take responsibility for developing their personal effectiveness in a hybrid environment.

Facilitated team sessions are an effective way to encourage staff to think about the knowledge, skills and behaviours they need to contribute as an effective team.

It focuses on the psychological aspects of being part of a community and staying connected while working in different locations.

None of this can happen without working with elected members as key stakeholders and providing them with the evidence they need to understand the business case for hybrid working – many of which are some of the perennial people issues faced by local authorities.

These include the ability to competitively recruit and retain staff, reduced sickness absence, greater productivity, better service continuity, carbon reduction contribution and lower building costs.

As a community we are already seeing the positive impact of well-implemented hybrid working on staff retention and recruitment.

We deliver services across complex ecosystems and as we evolve our understanding and practice, I am confident further gains can be achieved by extending these design principles across all teams and partners who are critical to service delivery.”

Gordon McFarlane

PPMA President and Assistant Director, Corporate Services at Leicestershire County Council

End Of The Year Message From Gordon McFarlane, PPMA President.

PPMA — Thu, 29 Dec 2022 13:01:34 +0000

Hello PPMA Member and friends

As we are the end of another difficult year, I just want to briefly reflect on the challenges and achievements for our profession over the course of 2022. Since the start of the pandemic, we seem to have been saying that the last year has been like no other, and here we are again…

Who could have predicted the global events and resulting impact on the economy, cost of living, and the knock on multitude of impacts on our workforce. We’ve talked a lot throughout the year via blogs, articles and webinars about the plethora of challenges that we’ve been facing, and more importantly, how to set about overcoming them. It’s when things are really difficult that the power of our networks really comes to the fore, and we’ve shared a lot of innovative ideas, best practice, as well as just sharing the problems! We should be proud of what we’ve achieved and the way in which we’ve got stuck in to a whole new set of challenges.

As an association, I’ve wanted us to have a broad set of priorities rather than a narrow theme, as this recognises the breadth of our membership, which continues to go from strength to strength. Our talent programmes have also flourished during 2022, and the annual conference at the end of April 2023 (26th to 28th in Birmingham) will give us a chance to celebrate a wide range of individual and collective achievements.

Happy New Year, and here’s to a positive (and busy!) 2023!

Gordon McFarlane, PPMA President