Dear PPMA colleagues and friends.

I hope you are enjoying this wonderful weather.  Last week the team was at the first of the two Public Sector Show conferences this year.  And, we had help from our friends at JobsGoPublic and The Guardian.

I had the pleasure of opening this year’s Workforce and Leadership workstream and invited all the days delagtes to attend as many sessions as they could – the attendance for all of the workstream sessions throughout the day was great. And this workstream is proving to be incredibly popular for our PSS colleagues overall.

Our second sessions were on Recruitment and Retention challenges caused by Brexit and the other very much focusing on Multigenerational Workforces. We had a couple of special guests in that session. Matt Burrows, our One to Watch 2018 joined us and Liv Harris, from Jobsgopublic joined us to walk participants through the research we jointly did and published at Annual Conference. We had some really interesting questions from the audience, particularly around the research. We’ll be looking at scoping the next part of that research over the summer, so if you have any comments you would like to make please let us know.

In the afternoon, I attended a panel chaired by Peter Cheese, CEO of CIPD.  I was was joined by our good friend Graeme McDonald, MD of SOLACE, the wonderful Deb McKenzie, People Director at Public Health England and Jessica Studdert from NLGN who brought a fascinating dimension to the discussion. I have had the pleasure of speaking on PSS panels with Graeme and Deb before, and I always enjoy the discussion with them and talking about the changes that have happened since our previous sessions.

One of the aims of our 4 way MOU is to find ways to help HR & OD colleagues gain experience across public sector as a whole. We already have some fantastic role models who have already demonstrated their capacity to do this. Deb is one of them and we’ll be hearing more from her in an upcoming article in People Management.

Grace also joined us for the day and manned our stand. We were chuffed with the number of people who came to visit and over 30 people signed up for our newsletter and we hope to see some more new members. Matt chipped in during the day and we also had support from the wonderful Stuart McKeown from The Guardian. We’re very grateful for our sponsors and their help in events like this.

It’s on to Manchester now for our next PSS. It’s being held on 20^th November at Manchester Central so keep your diary free!  Leatham and I will be with the PSS team over the next couple of weeks to work on our contribution to the day. So more to come in the next months.

Hello PPMA members and friends

We’re absolutely delighted to announce the following:

The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD), Health People Managers Association (HPMA), Public Services People Managers Association (PPMA) and Universities HR (UHR) has today announced a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to create a collective voice for HR across public service.

The memorandum outlines how the four organisations intend to collaborate to promote the development of workforce strategies, policy, talent management programmes, research, thought leadership that will enable the delivery of 21st Century public service workforces.

Thousands of highly committed HR & OD professionals will benefit from the collective efforts of the four membership bodies. The arrangement confirms each organisation’s commitment to building strong, diverse, high performing HR & OD communities that can best support the millions of people employed in public service and the Third Sector. The MoU, which runs from 2018 to 2023 will enable this by agreeing that all parties will work together to:

• Collaborate on a range of activities and issues to ensure they enhance the collective voice or their professions on a broad range of workforce issues
• Identify areas where they can work together to deliver cross-sector talent development opportunities to their members, more effective workforce solutions and services for public service employers and ultimately deliver the most effective services to the public
• Where appropriate, open up each organisation’s regional events to offer members maximum opportunities to network across sectors
• Support each other’s conferences, regional events and research programmes to showcase and share good practice
• As needed, develop joint responses to consultations and issues of the day to ensure that a cross-public service position is presented

Peter Cheese, Chief Executive for the CIPD, said: “The role that the HR and OD function plays and the value it brings has never been more important in the context of the many changes we are seeing in the world of work, from the changing nature of the workforce, to the impact of technology. Public service organisations collectively are the largest employer in the country and, through its employees, play a vital role in all our lives in the delivery of the many public services we engage with. The CIPD is delighted to be working with HPMA, PPMA and UHR to further develop professional skills and competencies, and we share the vision of building a strong, confident, and professional HR function playing its part in the development of public services for the future.”

Karen Grave, President PPMA 2018/19 said: “This MOU is a critical recognition of the fact that HR & OD professionals are stronger when we work together. The world of public service workforces is broad ranging, challenging, complex, frustrating at times, but ultimately deeply rewarding. Increasingly the boundaries across our organisations are blurred and for many of our members, working in partnership with private sector organisations is also common. This presents deep opportunities to learn from each other and enhance the entirety of our workforces. PPMA believes that it has a profound duty to work together with colleagues from other public service associations and our professional body CIPD, to develop a passionate, highly skilled, committed, diverse, professional and high performing HR & OD community. PPMA is totally committed to supporting this agreement.”

Sandra Heidinger, Chair of UHR, said: “Collaboration, knowledge sharing, networking, development of excellent practice and ongoing development of HR & OD professionals is critical to mission of UHR. We are proud to assist HR practitioners within the university sector as they deliver world class people management to support higher education staff in delivering excellence in research, teaching and in knowledge exchange. In common with our colleagues in PPMA, HPMA and CIPD, we believe that a healthy, committed and productive workforce drives organisational success with resulting societal impact. This collaborative opportunity allows these key HR and OD professional associations to support and learn from each other for our mutual benefit. UHR is delighted to be a part of this new collaboration and we look forward to being an active participant in our common cause.”

Deborah Tarrant, President of HPMA said: “HPMA fundamentally believes that every health and care organisation should excel in the way that they manage and care for their people. Great people management leads to improved health outcomes and quality of care, resulting in a healthier and more cared for nation. HR & OD professionals are at centre stage in the development of world class people management. Collaboration with CIPD, PPMA and UHR represents an exciting opportunity for HR & OD professionals to work in partnership across the whole public service system delivering the very best across the public service sector.”

For more information on this fantastic collaboration contact Karen Grave – president@ppma.org.uk or Grace Davies – admin@ppma.org.uk

– ENDS –

Dear PPMA friends and colleagues,

We’re absolutely delighted to have Karen Grave as our new President and in this blog post she shares her reflections with us on #ppmahr18 and sets out the organisations priorities for the coming year etc.

“Well what a week we had last week in Newcastle-Gateshead.  The team are just about recovered, but we are still buzzing from the wonderful reception we had to #ppmahr18 – I’m still mesmerised by gold stilt walkers!  I’d like to thank again the very many people who have taken the time to write to me (and the team) to say how much they enjoyed conference last week. That means such a lot to us, particularly as we ran a 3 day event and were snowed under with the increased capacity we had this year.  Our event partners at Sage Gateshead, Hilton and Jury’s Inn and our entertainers did us proud.

It’s difficult to pick out highlights from what was a week full of amazing experiences, but there are some memories that stand out for me this year:

Our outreach to students in partnership with Manpower. The power of that event has to be seen to be believed – meeting/working with young people and opening their eyes to our wonderful world of public service is one way that we can overcome the challenges in recruiting young people. My professional view is that strategically this can be a game changer and I want to work with our regions to look at how, together with Manpower, we embed this programme as part of our overall Let’s Talk You, Talent Offering.

The inclusivity, warmth, passion and camaraderie of conference – right from the pre conference event, through to the end has been expressed more than anything else. I am very proud that we were able to achieve this. We covered some tough topics. Jasvinder was an utter inspiration and I am still reflecting on her moving keynote opener. Whether it was the content of her speech or our pre conference event, or the sun – we certainly created amongst us a supportive, compassionate environment where a number of us where able to share some very heartfelt emotions.

And of course our MOU announcement with CIPD, HPMA and UHR. I’ve been working with Nicky and Helen (and Peter Cheese) for many months now on the detail of this agreement. We very much welcome David D’Souza now who will take this forward on Peter’s behalf. We all know that moving forward, collaboration and ensuring that our collective professional voice is raised is key to how we help organisations deal with the increasing challenges we face.

Our existing plans to develop our PPMA brand, offerings, increase our membership, harness the wisdom and experience of our Past President community and raise our collective professional voice will continue. However, there are a number of additional areas that will take up the attention of PPMA Policy Board and Principal Officers this year. We need to take a look at how we are governed and structured. This is partly driven by a desire to maximise the benefits from the MOU but also to ensure that we are nurturing and supporting the next generations of PPMA leadership. There will be lots more to come on that during the next months.

I’d like to thank again our sponsors, speakers, partners and delegates for all of your support. I’ve said many times before – and I am sure I will continue to do so – that we cannot do this without the support of all of you. I do want to encourage all of you to participate. Our Board and Principal Officer roles are, as you know, voluntary. We put in the most enormous effort to build a community that supports each other and retains a laser focus on workforce issues. We can’t do that without your involvement – so please take the time to read the blogs, participate in our research programme, support our regional events and talent management programmes. Keeping engaged keeps us honest by making sure we focus on the issues that matter to you. Don’t forget that Steve, Leatham, Kim, Grace, Policy Board and I work for you!

On a very personal note, I want to thank you for your extremely kind wishes following the death of my father. Although his death was expected, it has still nevertheless been a whirlwind since last Autumn. My last conversation with Dad was yet another exercise in bringing him up to speed with conference planning.  He would have been as proud of what we all achieved last week as I am to be your President this year.”

Warmest