Hello PPMA Members and friends

Pam Parkes has contributed to an article that’s appeared in the MJ Online today. Written by Dan Peters, it looks at how councils are focusing on hiring young skilled workers to solve their recruitment and retention problems and to ‘futureproof’ themselves against long term challenges finding staff and we thought we’d share it as a blog post and you can read it below.

Councils are focusing on hiring young skilled workers to solve their recruitment and retention problems and to ‘futureproof’
themselves against long term challenges finding staff.

The move to focus on the recruitment of Generation Z workers, who are aged up to 28, comes as councils struggle to recruit
skilled workers, including in planning, youth services and environmental health.

A paper to the latest meeting of Core Cities UK’s cabinet said its members were experiencing ‘gaps in key statutory officers,
quantity surveyors, legal, finance, analysis and other functions’. Planning is among council departments with acute recruitment
challenges while National Youth Agency workforce director, Abbee McLatchie, has complained about the ‘dearth of suitably
qualified youth workers’.

Public Services People Managers Association president, Pam Parkes, said: ‘Our members see broader difficulties in getting the
right people with the right digital or transformation skills for corporate roles, which are critical to the evolution and improvement
of public services.

‘Local government offers exactly what today’s workforce is looking for: meaningful work with real social impact and the
potential to build careers with variety and purpose.’

Councils are working with universities to encourage graduates to take up roles in the sector.

Director of human resources at East Midlands Councils, Samantha Maher, said targeting graduates was important as they ‘don’t think about local government as a career option or don’t realise there is a such a diversity of roles and careers’.

Maher said the focus on targeting younger workers was ‘in direct response’ to the recruitment challenges facing councils.
She added: ‘It is also about recognising the demographics of our workforce. We tend to have an older workforce and so it is part
of that futureproofing.’

West Midlands Employers’ director of leadership, organisational development and resourcing, Manny Sandhu, said her
organisation was ‘working closely with councils to provide workforce planning support and attraction strategies aimed at
Generation Z and beyond that not only addresses today’s recruitment challenges but anticipates the workforce needs of the next
five, 10, and even 20 years’.

She added: ‘This proactive approach is essential to ensure we have the talent pipeline required to sustain effective service
delivery in the future.’

Last year, with nine in 10 councils experiencing recruitment and retention problems, the Local Government Association,
alongside senior officers’ organisation Solace and regional employer organisations, launched a campaign to tackle challenges.

Parkes said: ‘Much as it did in the face of a shortfall in teachers, central government must step up and champion what we do and
why it is important to our country and its growth mission: think something like the successful Teach First scheme.’

Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government officials have met with sector representatives to discuss recruitment
pressures as part of a new workforce development group.

A Whitehall source said: ‘We recognise the recruitment pressures local government is facing. The group is run in partnership
with local government and will look at sector-wide workforce issues, including recruitment and retention, and identify priorities
for action.’