Hello PPMA friends

Our blog post this week has been written by Anastasia Simpson who is Chairperson of our South East Region and she shares with us the outcomes of a recent SE event.

“As your new South East Public Service People Managers’ Association (SE PPMA) Chair, I have the pleasure of writing this blog post, following the PPMA SE Regional Event held in West Suffolk this week.

The event followed the Heads of HR meeting and the regional updates, and the focus was related to digital HR. Presentations were provided by PPMA sponsors, Matrix SCM and Penna.

Prior to the event Matrix provided attendees with an online questionnaire looking at the pain points for HRDs in the recruitment process and the survey results provided the following results:
• 80% Talent shortages
• 40% Lack of suitable candidates / CV quality
• 40% Lack of market knowledge (pay rate / data)
• 30% Lack of visibility and real-time management information overspend
• 20% Poor fulfilment in front line service areas
• 20% Lack of control and authorisation process over agency spend
• 10% Manual based processes
• 10% Off-contract spend

Without any surprise, talent is still the number one issue and this led to a lively discussion at the meeting about how to attract to the ‘hard to recruit’ posts, what we are all doing to make the best use of the apprenticeship levy, recruitment incentives and any golden handcuff agreements. Thurrock Council provided a case study, highlighting how a digital platform has assisted them to reduce recruitment expenditure and be able to provide a range of meaningful recruitment data across the organisation.

Tristan Moakes from Penna then followed this with a brilliant presentation regarding the use of social media in recruitment and the importance of employer branding. The quote given about the importance of branding, being about what people say about you when you are not there, is very powerful and a useful reminder about the importance of getting the message right to attract future employees. The overview of the different social media channels was very thought-provoking and was presented to the meeting in an extremely engaging manner. PPMA members can view the presentation by logging into the members zone and go to ‘Regions’.

Karen Graves, PPMA President, provided the group with an insight into the darker side of digital, cyber bullying and the importance of thinking about the welfare of others and ourselves when using digital communication. Across the HR community, we all have a role to play in looking after each other in the digital world.

So what next…PPMA is inviting members to decide whether they would like a strategic HRD conference in the South East. This would enable some of the national PPMA conference speakers to join more local events and to also submit ideas for future events. There will also be opportunities for the local government sector to diversify and work with colleagues across sectors such as health (HPMA) and universities (UHR). PPMA has recently agreed MOUs with both organisations.

A big thank you also goes to Michelle Kirk and Lucy Ashwell at EELGA for working in partnership with PPMA.

I am already looking forward to our next PPMA event in the South East and I hope we are able to continue to build our network across the region.

With best wishes to all in the HR Community”

Anastasia Simpson
Chairperson, South East PPMA