1. business and industrial

newsletter
Issue 6 - October 2014
Developing a richer understanding!
This summer we have introduced a new client relationship management approach at WME, with the aim of developing a richer
understanding of the key people management, leadership and OD challenges and priorities facing our client base, as well as
ensuring that colleagues across the region are aware of WME’s evolving portfolio of services. Whilst I recognise that within our
small team we already have contact at every level within our councils and with a multitude of individual clients that already inform
us on service specific priorities, we hope that appointing a relationship manager will enable us to gain a more rounded picture
of engagement and provide a single contact point at WME for inquiries or questions We have learned over many years how
important 1-2-1 contact and engagement can be in securing close and longer term beneficial relationships.
The team has already begun to hold introductory discussions with colleagues around the region to explore where
WME can provide added value, and to identify with whom we need to have those key conversations within your
organisations. The information and feedback being gathered will help to improve our understanding of both local
and shared priorities and this intelligence will help us to ‘sense check’ our own focus and Business Plan objectives
as we move into 2015-16, the final year of our current 3 year Strategic Plan period.
We are in the process of recruiting new talent to our pool of ‘Associate Consultants’ and we hope these
conversations with our relationship managers will help us identify new opportunities and any gaps in our service
offer. We always welcome your input, so if you would recommend any individuals or enterprises that you think would
be a great addition to our consultancy pool, or if you believe we are ‘missing’ a key area of need around ‘people’
support, then just send me an email to [email protected].
If you have not yet had a visit from your WME relationship manager, they will be in touch very
soon to fix a date and we do really appreciate you setting aside some of your valuable time to
engage with us.
Colin Williams, Director
“We want more
Employment Law”
If the 120+ crowd attending the annual
WME Employment Law event in September
had a chant it would have been “we want
more Employment Law”. Once again WME
had a record turn-out of HR colleagues
who heard from our resident employment
law specialist, Darren Newman. Darren
talked about the key changes around
tribunal reform, shared parental leave and
holiday pay, as well as highlighting the case
law updates that are hitting the headlines.
We were also delighted to welcome Sarah
Lamont, a partner at Bevan Brittan, who
was able to provide a legal perspective
in relation to Exit Strategies and types of
dismissal.
Darren is a very knowledgeable and
popular employment law trainer;
his engaging style ensures the key
components of what can be quite dry
subject matter are imparted in a way that
makes the event both highly valued and
enjoyable for the audience. Delegate
feedback in September was a request for
‘more’ of this type of session.
In response, we are now planning another
event with Darren on 6th February 2015
with a focus on ‘Safeguarding and
Employment Law’. It will look at how
the rules on safeguarding interact with an
employer’s duties to its employees and
how employment law principles apply in
situations where safeguarding is an issue.
As with the Employment Law Update
we anticipate this event will sell out very
quickly and already have a ‘reserve me a
place list’ which is close to ensuring the
event is sold out before we even promote
it. So if you want to attend we recommend
you reserve your place now by emailing
[email protected]
Creating innovation
environments
Planning is already well underway for the
2nd WME Conference which takes place
on 18 March 2015. We will be returning
to Villa Park for this important event in
the WME calendar and format will follow
the highly successful conference in 2014.
There will be a mix of high quality keynote
speakers and facilitated workshops aimed
at an audience to be drawn from all levels
of our authorities including Chief Executives
and Leaders; with invites also extended to
colleagues from the wider public sector. In
2015 our theme is ‘innovation’ and how our
public sector organisations can create an
environment that supports and encourages
innovative approaches to tackling some of
the toughest issues facing the sector today.
Attendance is free so we encourage you to
put the date in your diary and look out for
further information in the next newsletter
and on our website and twitter feed. If
you don’t want to miss out you can email
[email protected] to reserve
your place at the 2015 conference.
Workplace Wellbeing
National Charter
There is now a growing recognition
within the business community of the
important contribution a good workplace
can make in ensuring positive physical
and emotional health; and the impact
of a positive approach to workplace
wellbeing on successful performance and
productivity. The launch of the national
Workplace Wellbeing Charter means that
many councils will be looking to adapt
their local wellbeing initiatives to achieve
accreditation under the national charter,
as well as being required to work with their
SMEs to embed workplace wellbeing within
their economic communities.
WME already has a number of services to
support improved workplace wellbeing and
we will continue to work with mental health
charities and Public Health England to
promote wellbeing and support our councils
in delivering their own local initiatives.
Word On W ebinar
Workplace Wellbeing
In January 2015 our second ‘Word on
Webinar’ event will spread the word
further afield when we join forces with
colleagues in the North West to highlight
the benefits to councils of workplace
wellbeing initiatives. We are delighted
that Professor Dame Carol Black will be
our key speaker; her impressive portfolio
includes being voted by BBC Radio 4
as one of the ‘top 100 most powerful
women in Britain in 2013’. Dame Carol
is an expert adviser to the Department of
Health playing an ambassadorial role for
building a positive relationship with work
and health, as well as being the Principal
of Newnham College Cambridge. Other
webinar participants include Amanda
Wadsworth, MBE who received her award
for championing disability in the North
West, and Sara Rawstron who delivers
WME’s incredibly popular ‘Resilience &
Brilliance’ programme.
Following the launch of the national
Workplace Wellbeing Charter this summer,
the webinar will focus on the business
case for embedding workplace wellbeing
and the positive steps employers can
take to improve and support positive
HR Sounding Board
Firstly our thanks to colleagues at
Coventry City Council who kindly hosted
the first meeting of the new regional HR
Sounding Board on 8 September. Over
25 colleagues from across the region
attended and heard contributions from
Luann Donald of the LGA, who provided an
update on the latest national developments
on HR issues arising from a range of public
sector transfer and the support available
with regard to the people issues involved
in setting up alternative service delivery
models. We also took the opportunity
to get colleagues to review and validate
the findings of our CIPD colleagues who
have been consulting Chief Executives
and senior colleagues on the latest HR
& OD challenges facing Councils and
what they needed from effective Business
Partners – this will inform the content of the
forthcoming ‘Aspire’ Business Partnering
programme which starts in November.
The event provided an opportunity for
colleagues to network and catch up on the
issues they are all focusing upon locally
and there was a healthy dialogue going on
over lunch!
In looking at future priorities, colleagues
heard about the significant corporate
change programme within Coventry, in
which HR & OD have an integral role
in ensuring the essential organisation
wide cultural changes were in place
to enable effective delivery. Many
colleagues are involved in addressing
the people issues around similar themes;
albeit at different stages of the ‘change
lifecycle’. Colleagues were keen to hold
further discussions around these themes
integrated within regional discussions
with OD leads; and further work could be
discussed at a meeting of the Leadership &
OD Forum - WME offered to frame a future
discussion to include a description of the
stages of the ‘lifecycle’.
emotional health. The webinar will include
an opportunity for questions and signpost
participants to further help and support. If
you are interested in participating in the
webinar please let us know at
[email protected] or if
you want to find out more about our
Resilience & Brilliance programme
go to www.wmemployers.org.uk/
resilienceandbrilliance
Mental Health
awareness
If you did not manage to secure a place on
our Mental Health First Aid Lite workshop
taking place at Sandwell Council on World
Mental Health Awareness Day (10th
October) then don’t worry as we already
have requests to deliver this awareness
workshop to over 100 people directly
into local councils. If you are interested
in arranging a mental health awareness
workshop for your authority or if you do
have individuals you would like to book
onto a workshop then contact us and we
will do our best to meet your particular
needs. [email protected]
The quarterly HR Sounding Board provides
a forum for colleagues to discuss the front
line and day to day HR challenges and
at their request WME will now post the
outcomes of ‘info requests’ on our website.
The next meeting of the HR Sounding
Board will take place on Friday 12th
December – and as with all the networks
WME facilitates, the focus and topics for
debate should be led by you ... after all it’s
your network; so send your suggestions to
[email protected]
To find out about other WME Networks go
to www.employers.org.uk/ournetworks
High demand for
Resilience
HOTtopics
The challenge to deliver service excellence
alongside efficiency savings requires
strong leadership and a willingness to
embrace new solutions. In this context
WME has developed a ‘Hot Topics’ series
to support those responsible for managing
others. Shift Happens and Step Up
have been developed to encompass the
essential elements of supervision and line
management and will provide valuable
guidance on effective performance and
people management.
Shift Happens
24th November
This workshop focusses on the need to
drive and manage change whilst supporting
the team as they move through the change
process. WME Consultant, Marianne
Douglas explains “I recently ran a pilot
of this programme in Staffordshire and
feedback was very positive; I’m looking
forward to going back and delivering a
further two sessions for them! 100% said
they would recommend the workshop to
a colleague and committed to implement
the learning; everyone gained ‘some’ new
skills and understanding, and for 25% of
participants it was completely new!”
“Enjoyable day, well presented
with knowledgeable facilitator
and gained a lot of useful
techniques and skills”.
To book Shift Happens CLICK HERE
In the summer we launched our new
Resilience and Brilliance programme
and it has had a great response and
surprisingly (or maybe not), we have had a
lot of requests to deliver these workshops
for larger groups of staff directly into our
authorities. Due to the demand for inhouse delivery there are still a few places
left on our workshops if your requirements
are for only 1 or 2 people.
Step Up
3rd & 4th December
A practical 2 day programme aimed at
helping those who have been promoted
as a result of strong technical expertise
to make the transition from team member
to an efficient and respected supervisor.
Marianne explains “during my time
working with the public sector I have
met many people who were promoted
into supervisor, team leader and even
management roles because they were very
good practitioners – for those that had no
prior experience of managing others, they
often felt totally unprepared to take on the
additional responsibility when ‘people and
performance’ were thrown into the mix!
Step Up will help new managers quickly
make the transition from one of the team to
an efficient and respected supervisor”.
To book Step Up CLICK HERE
HOT TOPICS
OFFER
Save 15% when you
book 3 or more places
together!
Suggest a Hot Topic
Send a brief outline of your idea or local
need to [email protected].
uk and one of our team will give you a call.
23rd October 2014
Resilient Leadership
3 November 2014
Developing Personal Resilience
20 November 2014 or
8 December 2014
Managing Workplace Pressure & Stress
To book: www.wmemployers.org.uk/
resilienceandbrilliance
If you need to deliver resilience to a larger
group in-house then please get in touch.
Email: [email protected]
Early bird gets the
discount!
In September we launched our Accelerate
‘Back to School Offer’ for Steps to
Leadership and Change for Children. The
offer expires on the 17th October 2014 so
book now to receive a £50 discount per
person.
CLICK HERE to book
Tell me about … At WME we are keen to improve our stakeholder engagement and by that we
mean filtering our communications with you by focusing on topics that you have told us are of interest. So
please take a moment to provide us with a tick list of topics that you are happy to receive information on and
you can also follow this link to unsubscribe.
Share with a friend … we are always happy for you to share our information with colleagues
so forward this on to others so they can also register to receive information direct from WME.
Tell me about...
Focus on ...Care
The right thing at the
right moment
There is no disputing that as forms of
development coaching and mentoring are
powerful tools! WME is delighted to be
welcoming over 100 delegates to our
7th Annual Coaching and Mentoring
Conference taking place on 10 November
at Crowne Plaza NEC, Birmingham.
Delegates will be hearing about the new
ways that we can apply coaching and
mentoring to different situations. We will
be exploring how understanding the way
the brain works can help us to be more
effective in the approaches we take and
enhancing our skills to develop the instinct
to choose the right thing, at the right
moment.
We have a fantastic programme of
speakers drawing on the latest research
in neuroscience, creativity, working with
group dynamics and much more. There
are a limited number of spaces left so if
you want to join fellow coaches, mentors,
experts, and managers with a keen interest
in coaching and mentoring to learn more,
then book your place now.
www.wmemployers.org.uk/
wmcmpconference2014
A group of senior HR and OD leaders
from around the region took some
valuable time out to attend the WME’s
Strategic Resourcing Forum to explore the
challenges that lie with building regional
capacity within the Care profession;
particularly the recruitment and retention
of Social Workers and Team Managers.
Olivia Redgrave from Skills for Care
gave an enlightening presentation on the
plethora of resources that are available
through skillsforcare.org.uk to assist HR
and Social care professionals embrace the
changes that the Care Act will bring about.
Colleagues were particularly interested
to learn about the refreshed Recruitment
and Retention Strategy launched by
the Department of Health in September
2014 and to consider how we can work
collaboratively across the West Midlands
to build available and well trained capacity
within our regional market place.
Kate Wilson and Neil Harrison from TMP
Worldwide provided a taste of their recent
research into Social Care recruitment
and retention, which stimulated some
strong debate about the motivations of
working as a permanent employee or as an
agency worker in this field. There were no
surprises that the key to retention is not just
pay and reward but also the quality of team
leadership and management.
Shokat Lal, Assistant Director for HR and
Workforce Services at Coventry shared
the rationale behind the ‘Do it for Daniel’
recruitment campaign which is worth a
look if you haven’t seen it as it’s regarded
as one of the most creative and brave
campaigns that has hit the recruitment
market place for some time.
also concluded that the strategic capacity
planning necessary to achieve the Care
Act can be used as a vehicle to stimulate
some necessary long term thinking on how
capacity is identified, and developed to fulfil
crucial roles in the future.
Our thanks to Sue Evans, Head of
HR and OD at Warwickshire for kindly
hosting the Forum and providing excellent
refreshments! The next meeting of the
Forum will take place in January 2015 and
will be hosted by Worcestershire with a
focus on ‘investing for the future’.
Aspire Cohort 1
WME and CIPD
are delighted
that places
on the first
Aspire Business Partnering
Programme were a fast sell out.
Although perhaps not quite as popular as
Glastonbury tickets, the level of interest
from HR professionals across and beyond
our region certainly bodes well for the
launch of Aspire in November. In fact the
demand for places means that we
already have a waiting list for Cohort
2 and will be confirming dates for this
second programme shortly. If you
wish to reserve your place on the Aspire
waiting list please email
[email protected] and we will
contact you with dates once they are
confirmed.
www.doitfordaniel.co.uk
The question of regional collaboration
versus the local competitive market is
one that we will continue to wrangle with.
The majority of colleagues thought the
region could benefit from a combined
local and regional approach as a solution
to some of the recruitment issues, but we
Innovate Improve Invest: Delivering Public Services Differently
Improvement and Efficiency West Midlands are holding their 4th Annual Conference on 5th December, hosted in partnership with
the LGA and sponsored by Virgin Media, the awarded provider of the West Midlands Public Services Network (PSN). The event is
aimed at chief executives, senior officers, elected members and council leaders across local
government; with additional limited spaces available to wider public sector partners, private
and third sector colleagues. IEWM promise an engaging, value-packed programme, focussing
on sector led improvement and the role of innovation and technology in delivering local public
services differently.
Secure your free place today at: https://iewmconference14.eventbrite.co.uk
BIG DATA
Making it work for you
WMJobs Talentlink system is a highly
sophisticated tool and as with most
technology the better you understand
what it can do, the easier it is to make it
really work for you. The WMJobs team has
the technical expertise to help partners
configure their Talentlink system locally to
deliver the services they need in the most
efficient and effective way. We recognise
that finding that extra bit of budget can be
no small order these days, but we firmly
believe that additional investment in local
configuration will not only add real value on
the ground in terms of improving service
delivery, but will also enhance the potential
ROI of overall investment in on-line
solutions such as Talentlink.
Sharon Hartill, Head of HR Operations &
Transactions at Dudley MBC recognises
the importance of reviewing the services
her team delivers, asking questions such as
“is our service really adding value and how
do we evidence that?; are we maximising
the use of all the resource and technology
we have?; where do I go next to achieve
and deliver more for my organisation?’.
There are certainly no easy answers, but
for Dudley it prompted them to look at ways
they could make Talenlink work better for
them. Our team have been working with
Dudley on a number of key projects.
Click and Sign
Dudley undertook a review of the contracts
section of their transactional services to see
if they could automate them to reduce the
time and number of hand offs currently in
their process. The project delivered three
automated template contracts that also
provide online appointment letters which
can be created, sent and received through
the system. This should provide substantial
efficiency savings and return on investment
in a number of areas. WMJobs provided
expert advice and guidance to assist local
configuration and worked on contract
formatting and testing.
A key ambition for Dudley is to make
efficiencies whilst still providing a good
standard of service and to be able to access
data to evidence any proposed service
improvements. Talentlink offers reporting
at your fingertips so Dudley needed to work
out what they wanted and how to extract it.
WMJobs inherent system knowledge and
expertise helped Dudley understand the
functionality possibilities so that they could
design reports that would be most valuable
to them.
Attracting the best
A key priority for WMJobs is the ability
to attract (as well as process) the best
talent available into our sector. As a public
sector jobs site WMJobs.co.uk attracts
visitors from across the country and whilst
the majority of traffic is local, our second
highest hit rate is from London. We think
we are performing pretty well but we never
rest on our laurels, so these are some
initiatives we are deploying to increase
volume and quality of traffic.
Schools are doing it for
themselves
Dudley and WMJobs are working together
to pilot the roll out of a full back office
service to their schools. This ambitious
project will see all 100 schools using the
self-service technology by April 2015. Our
team is delivering training to all schools
as well as providing service desk support
for this transformation project to ensure
they are supported through to independent
usage of the system. The automation
and modernisation of their recruitment
processes will improve candidate
experiences, reduce back office costs, and
profile Dudley schools as dynamic and
technologically advanced. We are in the
early stages of the project so look for a full
update in our next newsletter.
If you believe your schools could
benefit from using WMJobs self-service
recruitment please get in touch
[email protected]
WMJobs.co.uk looking
to the future
What will the future for recruitment
processing look like post 2017 when
the current phase of WMJobs service
delivery concludes? Your recruitment
back office system is key to streamlined
and efficient recruitment services and we
continue to work with partners to optimise
the system’s performance and reap the
finance and service benefits available. This
modernisation must continue post 2017
so we are working towards a continued
provision of back office e-recruitment
services to ensure excellence in service
delivery. We are planning our procurement
approach and will be having exploratory
discussions with our partners and their
ICT leads to help us develop a ‘regional
specification’ that reflects our ambitions for
WMJobs beyond 2017. We know you like
to have the ‘best of breed’ systems and
that’s exactly what we will be going out to
market for so as to ensure we are ahead of
the game and able to compete effectively in
an ever tightening market place.
New look WMJobs.co.uk:
You set the vision for us to be a ‘leading
public sector jobs board’ and that is what we
are striving towards; so in 2015 we want to
harness advanced technology in our service
delivery and will be going out to market for
a new jobs board platform to provide mobile
technology, responsive design and a sales
portal to expand the potential of the site.
Search Engine Optimisation
(SEO):
A small amount of funding has been
invested in Search Engine Optimisation
to ensure that WMJobs is more prominent
on internet search results. To be a ‘leading
public sector jobs board’ and to ‘attract
quality and experienced candidates’ it is
necessary to invest in promoting the site to
other candidate markets.
Feature Microsites:
Ever wished you could emphasise what
it’s really like to work in your organisation
to prospective candidates, to give them a
flavour of the benefits and culture and to
entice them to consider applying for your
role? Recruitment adverts are often task
focused and a list of information that tells
your applicants very little about you as
an organisation; most to be honest are
dull! WME has introduced a new microsite
service that can help you promote who you
are, what you do and what you are looking
for! We offer a variety of mini-sites created
from a simple one page recruitment site to
complex five page multi-purpose sites - all
at extremely competitive prices!
To find out more contact
[email protected]
New faces and new names at WME
Chris Boote
is a welcome addition to the WMJobs team with a clear
remit for project management, training delivery and
client support. Chris will be working closely with our
partnership clients to help them make the best use of
the WMJobs system and service portfolio, developing
local expertise to deliver slick and efficient operational
processes. Chris will carry out client process reviews,
provide technical expertise on different operating
platforms and will lead and manage client specific
projects. When asked for a personal anecdote he
told us he is planning to learn to body-pop before a
trip to Australia – he may be ahead of the game in his
technical knowhow but someone needs to bring him up
to speed on twerking!
Illesse Uppal
became the first ‘WME Apprentice’ when she
joined the team in September. Illesse is part of the
Sandwell Future Skills Apprenticeship Scheme and
has joined WME to provide business administration
and support and is working towards securing a
Level 2 NVQ in Business and Administration. Illesse
has aspirations to have her own event management
business and her time with WME will certainly provide
ample opportunities for Illesse to gain experience in
all the aspects of event coordination and delegate
management.
Ding Dong the bells already chimed ….
yes we have celebrated a couple of weddings this year with Carrie Rowberry tying the
knot on a cruise ship in the Caribbean Sea and Michelle Cartwright taking her vows
nearer to home before jetting off in search of Elvis (Las Vegas) and the perfect wave
(Hawaii). For those of you who have asked here are the happy couples and please
don’t forget to update your email contacts
[email protected] and [email protected]
Save
the date
3 November 2014
Developing Personal Resilience
5 & 6 November 2014
Mental Health First Aid Certificate
10 November 2014
7th Annual Coaching and Mentoring
Conference (LIMITED PLACES)
20 November &
8 December 2014
Managing Workplace Pressure & Stress
12 December 2014
HR Sounding Board
6 February 2015
Safeguarding & Employment Law
(LIMITED PLACES)
18 March 2015
WME Annual Conference
MORE:
www.wmemployers.org.uk/events-meetings
Congratulations
to them both!
Contact us...
West Midlands Employers offers a range of
services aimed at local councils and the wider
public sector to support performance improvement
at both an individual and organisational level,
helping you to make the best use of your greatest
resource - your people.
www.wmemployers.org.uk
[email protected]
0845 352 7010
Follow us
@WMEmployers
Case Study
September 2014
Click & Sign the new automated contracts, Dudley MBC
“As part of our HR services delivery to be the best in house HR Service we are constantly challenging ourselves on all
our transactional practices, to enable us to question are we adding value? Are we embracing new technology? Are we
adopting lean systems thinking?
The above is what has moved us to look at the contracts section of our transactional services....can we automate them
to reduce the time and number of hand offs currently in the process?”
Sharon Hartill, Head of HR - Operations & Transactions
Where we started
Phase one was a review of the existing
contracts to establish whether these can
be reduced in number, a review which took
us 4 months to complete, we now have
established three contracts all with slight
variations.
Phase two concentrates on automating these
contracts within our recruitment system,
TalentLink to avoid creating contracts
outside of the system. We saw the system
had huge potential in terms of providing an
automated service at the click of a button,
however the complexity of configuring
the system coupled with limited resource
resulted in our request to WME for support.
We are now well on our way to having
automated contracts and have approached
the project on a phased approach, first
phase is the delivery of 3 complex contracts.
This will provide not only automated
contracts but also online appointment letters
which we can create, send and receive
through the TalentLink system.
The project commenced in June 2014 and
has engaged WMJobs and associates
to deliver 3 complex contracts within a
timeframe of 7 weeks.
The functionality is anticipated to provide
substantial efficiency savings and return on
investment in the following areas:
• Elimination of any manual input to create
contracts due to the full use of merge
fields and ‘IF’ statements.
• Elimination of stationary, printing and
postage costs as all correspondence
will be online via TalentLink including
candidate acceptance/declination of
the offer via email (offer letter) and
attachment of contract.
• Potential reduction in the time to offer as
correspondence is online.
• Improved auditing with the ability to view
all contract variations by date, type and
person.
• Increased control of the hiring process for
HR with online approvals built in.
• More efficient process for the new
employee, a great way to start the onboarding process through a fast, efficient,
technology driven offer process.
• Anticipated reduction in the time to hire
by at least 2 weeks. (At present the
average time taken between notification
of appointment by managers and actual
appointment following PES checks is 2
weeks to write and send the contract.
Using the automatic contract generation...
this will be almost instant!)
Working with WME. What
exactly did they bring to
the table?
In terms of delivery areas WME helped us
in;
• System and process expertise advising
on processes and requirements.
In terms of added value, we felt that
WMJobs provided expert advice in the
formatting of the contracts, especially in how
the fields linked to the contract templates.
They also provided valued support in term of
testing, advice and guidance.
Lessons learnt along
the way
Be clear within your specifications as
you will receive what you requested!
A full review and understanding of the
use of ‘IF’ statements at the outset
may contribute to the content of your
contracts meaning more generic
paragraphs are built in.
Have some local internal resource
available as testing is crucial for
successful delivery.
Consistency between the sandbox
(testing) environment and live
environment will result in more
accurate testing.
• Detailed brief taking and scoping of
project.
• Full mapping of requirements.
• Building the specification for
configuration.
• Expert system configuration to build the
required merge and IF statements.
• Full Project management from Initial
briefing to full implementation keeping us
to time and to scope.
• No distractions – the WMJobs team are
fully focused on delivering these types of
projects.
Contact us...
www.wmemployers.org.uk
[email protected]
0845 352 7010
Case Study
September 2014
Our stepping stone to recruitment BIG DATA, Dudley MBC
Part of our continuous improvement agenda is to critically review the services we deliver, hence our big questions
include;
• How is our service viewed by our customers?
• Is our service really adding value, if so where – needed evidence?
• How do we engage with those who do not value HR and see a typical HR Service....always slowing down the
process?
• Are we as a team performing to the best of our capabilities?
• How do we inform the business that implementing an Applicant Tracking System (ATS) was the right thing for us?
• Where do I go next to achieve and deliver more for my organisation?
• Are we maximising the use of all the resource and technology we have?
Sharon Hartill, Head of HR - Operations & Transactions
Evidence
Where we started
These are the big questions that we have
been asking ourselves at Dudley and
given the efficiency challenges we face it is
important that we make good and evidenced
decisions on how to make these efficiencies
whilst understanding how to still provide a
good standard of service. We are keen to
look at our recruitment process and really
dig deep to understand more about the
service we are delivering.
We had some great and obvious ideas
which have helped us move forward, batch
importing, automation of maternity and
absence processing, electronic/posting
of payslips and more recently a project to
automate the generation of employment
contracts. All of these have contributed to
the costing savings however more is needed
and it is important to us that we make the
right decision in an informed way.
Improvements and changes in the
resourcing process aren’t as obvious and
we were very conscious that we have
various stakeholders to provide a service to;
candidates, managers, and schools.
Before we started to be click happy in the
reporting tool, we needed to challenge
ourselves to really consider what is it that we
need to know whilst also gain an insight into
what TalentLink could provide us.
To achieve the above, we knew we needed
to;
• Agree a suite of reports required for
HR Resourcing and for Information
Management Data Sets.
We know that a key benefit of having a
sophisticated ATS such as Talentlink is
that reporting is at your fingertips. Given
our big questions it was time to review
the data to inform our decision-making
which meant reporting. This would
allow us to analyse the true situation
and provide evidence to underpin any
improvements we needed to implement.
• Understand Talentlink report functionality
and how this can be maximised to
answer our questions and help us deliver
our ambitions.
• Have a detailed specification outlining
each and every report we required.
• Configure the suite of reports which
would become report templates with
the ability to be automated to run on a
predefined time period.
Working with WME.
What exactly did they
bring to the table?
We chose to work with WME on this project
because of their expertise with the reporting
functionality and to release resource
elsewhere within the organisation for the
implementation of other priority projects.
WME delivered;
• Scoping session workshop to widen our
understanding of TalentLink reporting
whilst providing practical discussion to
help design each report requirement
• Configuration of each report template
and training on how to extract this from
Talentlink
• A highlights report analysis containing
the data highlighting trends and potential
areas for improvements
• Project management to co-ordinate the
project including testing feedback
• Development of reporting ‘Workspace
App’ – to support work allocation