Working harder to net the top talent

Shaking up the recruitment and application process can help fill key skills gaps in the public sector, writes Nic Paton

A few years ago, a former private sector boss was applying for the post of deputy chief executive at a major London council. One evening, he and his competitors for the post were invited to a meal with the councillors - nominally, so council staff could get to know them, but also so to cast a discerning eye over the potential candidates.

Although more than used to jumping through some unusual hoops to land jobs in the private sector, he was somewhat surprised to find himself playing a form of musical chairs with his erstwhile rivals. As he and his competitors remained seated, and after each course, the councillors moved round a place to grill, as it were, a new person in turn.

Such idiosyncratic behaviour may, thankfully, be relatively rare, but it highlights how seriously the public sector takes the search for talented and skilled individuals. Skills shortages are a major headache within the public sector. Yet all too often, public sector organisations let themselves down by outdated, bureaucratic thinking and processes, a lack of creativity and poor self-image.

A study by recruitment group Reed, published in July, found public sector organisations were 9 per cent more likely to experience skills shortages when recruiting than their private sector counterparts. A total of 53 per cent faced shortages, compared with 44 per cent of private sector businesses, by and large reversing the situation from the 1990s.

Local government (at 61 per cent) was the worst affected, with healthcare on 55 per cent, uniformed services on 53 per cent, education at 49 per cent and central government on 48 per cent.

And, according to IRS Employment Review, in a study published the same month, just 7 per cent of public sector employers were confident their recruitment problems would decrease in the next 12 months, with the proportion anticipating no end to their difficulties almost doubling.

Last year, the Audit Commission was even more gloomy, warning that staff shortages were reaching crisis point, particularly in London and the South East. Stress was the number one reason why many were leaving public sector jobs. Demand was outstripping supply and the age profile in many professions was becoming acute, with local government in particular dominated by older workers.

While the evidence may look grim, the picture on the ground is more complicated, suggests Paul Masterman, head of local government recruitment at TMP Worldwide.

Outside London and the South East, for instance, recruiting teachers is not necessarily a problem, whereas hiring an environmental health officer or social worker can be a trial anywhere.

Increased investment in the public sector, as well as better levels of pay and attraction of better job security and pensions than in the private sector have encouraged more people to look at it as a career. "But we need to look at how we engage with people during the recruitment process and, once we have got someone on board, how we communicate with them and retain them, and how we reinforce the employment promise made," says Masterman.

Some of the problems facing the public sector, notably that of an ageing workforce and lack of younger people coming on board, are not sector specific but generic problems faced by employers as a whole, he points out.

It is only in the last year or so that the public sector has seriously begun to talk about how it can address skills shortages, argues Bill Brace, public sector manager with Reed. "It is about how organisations promote themselves as employers of choice, how they brand themselves," he says.

According to the Reed survey, technical and professional skills are commonly in the shortest supply, followed by IT and computer skills, public sector knowledge and experience, financial skills, management skills, customer service skills and, finally, those with private sector experience.

Public sector organisations have to work harder to capture the skilled people they need. Potential candidates too often rule themselves out because they think they do not have the right skills or experience, so the sector needs to think of ways of getting the message across that they should at least try, Brace suggests.

Blackpool Borough Council is one employer that has taken the initiative, making intensive use of new media technology to find individuals from different backgrounds. It has partnered with online recruiter Monster.com, and now offers a weblink to potential candidates, where they can download video presentations on what it is like to work for the council. In less than two years, the internet response has grown to 30 per cent.

The Metropolitan Police are also taking an innovative approach; having just completed a £20m community and race relations training programme to bring race awareness training to its police and civilian employees. It has also been making great efforts to encourage applications from the wider community in the wake of the Macpherson Report into the death of black teenager Stephen Lawrence.

Nationally, forces have made widespread use of advertising in unusual places to attract a wider range of recruits. You are now just as likely to find an advert for Essex police in the pages of women's magazine Glamour, as there was recently, as one within Police Review or in the Guardian.

"Black people never used to see the police force as a career for them, but there have been some changes now. We need to learn from that marketing campaign," admits Andreas Ghosh, head of personnel and development at the London Borough of Lewisham, and director of recruitment and retention at the Society of Chief Personnel Officers.

Public sector employers need to play to their strengths more, he argues. They need to think about the key words likely to attract people, such as 'building communities', 'helping the environment' and 'working with children'. Recruiters also need to think laterally, analysing what is attractive about the job, and what misconceptions there might be.

"We have started to break down some of the myths associated with working in the public sector, but there is still more to do," stresses Ghosh. "We are trying to develop good practice around promotion and recruitment and trying to get senior managers to remove a lot of the bureaucracy from the recruitment process."

And the process is certainly an issue. For applicants from the private sector, the thud of a thick, impersonal briefing pack and application form on to the doormat is often just the first shock. Formal panel interviews, test days, candidate presentations and a generally much longer time frame can also work against public sector organisations.

"In a tight labour market, if you have three or four employers looking for someone with the same sorts of skills, and for one of them you have to complete a five-page application form and the other you can send in a CV, then the easiest option will be the CV," says Mick James, assistant director of recruitment and careers at the Employers' Organisation for Local Government (EO).

When organisations take between eight and 14 weeks from application to hiring, then it is not surprising they lose talented applicants to faster-moving private sector firms, he adds. The difficulty is balancing the demands for public sector probity against the need to be efficient and move fast.

Yet, when public sector organisations do try to rebrand themselves and streamline their application process, they can be hugely successful. The EO's national graduate development programme, for instance, is to double its intake after just one year of operation.

A key idea of the EO scheme is to try to make local government a more attractive career option for younger people, shaking off its image of elderly pen-pushers and to 'sell' the range and scope of careers on offer.

About 2,600 people applied for just 50 places on offer on the programme last September, up from 2,100 the year before. The number of posts available is now to be increased from 500 to 1,000.

What's more, about 85 per cent of these applications were made online, making the process more efficient and more candidate friendly.

"Why don't local authorities make more of their final salary pension schemes? The package they offer can be a very attractive option to someone in their late 40s. Or job security? Where else could you go to work in an organisation that in most towns and cities is the largest employer, with a huge span of opportunities?" asks James.

For the past five years, for instance, Nottingham City Council has been working to boost the number of employees under 25 through a scheme with Jobcentre Plus. The council has appointed a New Deal employment manager, cut job requirements, simplified application forms and helped with interview training and form filling.

So far, some 82 people have been recruited into permanent posts through the scheme, with 66 per cent aged between 18 and 24.

High-profile advertising

The Department of Health, too, has been working hard to attract nurses back into the profession, with high-profile advertising campaigns. It is trying a similar approach with social work, setting up a national campaign to raise the profile of social work as a potential career.

The difficulty here is that professions dealing with mental health are not seen as glamorous, according to the Sainsbury Centre for Mental Health, and often get a poor press when things go wrong. Even in the medical profession, psychiatry is often thought of as a poor relation to things like surgery.

A study by the centre published in April suggests there is still too much reliance on recruiting staff through conventional training and education, with too little done to retain existing staff or use skills more creatively.

The NHS and police service are both due to get their own Sector Skills Council (SSC), the Government's replacement for the National Training Organisations (NTOs). The councils, which are designed to develop action plans to tackle skills gaps in specific sectors of the economy, are a key part of the Government's Skills Strategy unveiled in July.

At the launch of the strategy, education secretary Charles Clarke pledged a rapid expansion of the council network to "identify, map and meet key skills needs in employment sectors".

Central government, too, has its own skills issues, in particular, how to address a shortage of skilled lawyers, economists and accountants, argues Nicky Oppenheimer, a partner at recruitment firm Odgers, Ray & Berndston.

While pay is still an issue, the focus has been on the challenges and career rewards that come with such posts, she says. "People are beginning to realise it is intellectually fascinating and stimulating, and the fact they are at the heart of things can be attractive," she says.

For public sector HR professionals, argues the EO's James, the challenge is to start thinking bigger. It is up to HR to lead the debate, he suggests, and to look at where recruitment and retention strategies are within the bigger picture and study where they need to positioned in the future.

HR has a pivotal role to play when it comes to attracting skilled and talented people. It can keep its head down and do nothing, or it can act as the recruitment champion, speaking to and cajoling the elected members and driving forward new attitudes.

"HR needs to be challenging managers who want to do it a certain way because that is the way they have always done it. It has got to start challenging traditions," James argues.

Case study: Kent County Council
Targeting the local community

Kent County Council has found itself in the enviable position of being inundated with applications for social worker positions, thanks to an innovative scheme called Ready for Practice, launched four years ago.

The scheme is designed to 'grow your own' social workers by targeting the local community for social work jobs. Local people are taken on and trained, while being paid by the council, so as not to put off applicants worried about attracting debts and to attract older applicants and those with first degrees. Candidates start off on a basic salary of £13,000, with their college fees all paid for.

The scheme, developed in partnership with Christ Church College, Canterbury, has been widely marketed through local newspaper advertisements. The council knew it was on to something when, in its first year, there were 1,600 enquiries and 650 applications for the initial 14 places. This year alone, it has attracted some 400 to 500 applicants for 40 places.

"We have been swamped by applications each year, and overwhelmed by the number of people who want to come on to the scheme," says Frank Nichols, head of professional development at the council.

The vacancy rate for children and family social work positions is now just 7 per cent, way below average for the South East, he adds.

A key element has been promoting the fact there will be continued opportunities for development and training, not just for the basic two years. There is a 10-point plan staff care package and a new career-grade structure.

The career-grade structure is linked to a competency framework that allows staff to develop from newly-qualified to senior practitioner. The council has also tried to minimise bureaucracy and looked at benefits such as health promotion.

"By trying to get local people, you have the advantage that they are less likely to move elsewhere and, politically, it is a very good thing for our elected membership to support. It is an investment in local people," says Nichols.

"We have tried to make Ready to Practice our Kent brand and have made a big play about the scheme. Being trained as a qualified social worker is just part of the package," he adds.

There has also been a push to attract existing staff who might have always wanted to move over to social work but had never felt they had the opportunity to do so. Other local authorities have expressed strong interest in the scheme, as has the Department of Health, which has visited the council to speak to the team, Nichols adds.