Maintaining a skilled and competent workforce
This section includes good practice on:
Introduction
An effective workforce is fundamental to a successful organisation.
Employee retention
The good practices below will help you to maintain a skilled, competent and effective workforce. These are:
- promoting the benefits of healthy eating and exercise by investing in innovating training and establishing in-house initiatives such as ‘healthy eating days’
- investing in stress management courses for all staff
- having a training strategy that recognises the different skills bases and competencies needed by benefit processors, customer-facing employees, fraud investigators, supervisors and managers
- operating a training programme for all employees that includes training for new and existing employees in all key areas of benefits administration that:
- makes employees aware of the objectives of the service,
- builds and keeps up-to-date competencies in providing an effective benefits service to customers, internal and external stakeholders, and
- addresses the competency needs of all employees
- supporting changes to Housing Benefit (HB) and Council Tax Benefit (CTB) administration procedures, for example regulations or advice in Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) circulars, with timely local training sessions and/or locally-produced written training material
- investing in performance management, and in the training and development of new and more experienced employees, as these can play a key role in:
- attracting new recruits
- retaining employees
- offering a career path for potential managers
- developing the management skills of more senior employees
- bringing greater consistency and fairness to the management of employees
- highlighting where individuals need to develop or improve performance, and ensuring that career advancement is based on demonstrable delivery of results and competence to take on greater responsibility
- carrying out training needs analyses for all employees and producing a structured training programme
- having a formal mechanism for specifying and evaluating the training provided
- using the evaluations to review and revise the training strategy and programme
- using quality/management check outcomes to inform staff training
- ensuring managers are equipped with the skills to do their jobs, including performance management
- providing specialist training on change management, project management and contract management, as required
- ensuring that HB and CTB employees' job descriptions properly reflect the work the jobholders actually do and that their personal work objectives reflect higher level departmental and corporate objectives
- providing work objectives and ensuring the appraisal process provided for employees includes formal feedback at least twice a year and an annual written performance appraisal
- considering the introduction of competency-based appraisals
- ensuring specialised HB and CTB technical support, including use of software, is available to all employees
- ensuring that the release of employees for training does not create workload backlogs
- ensuring employees keep a personal log of all training and development so that the levels of training in the benefits service can be assessed
- having a target for the proportion of professionally-qualified employees within the benefit service and an action plan, linked to employees' personal development plans, for achieving and maintaining this
- having employees who are qualified or working towards qualifications for customer service and in their respective fields, for example:
- National Vocational Qualification or Scottish National Vocational Qualifications for customer service and benefits administration employees
- Institute of Revenues Rating and Valuation qualifications for benefits administration employees
- Professionalism in Security qualification, for fraud investigators and managers
- Master of Business Administration, or other management qualification for managers
- linking incremental pay increases to achievement of key skills, providing training and support to acquire those skills
- being clear about the level of skill or knowledge that new entrants will require to enable the local authority (LA) to recruit the right people
- delivering training programmes which enable new entrants to reach a basic level of competence or keep experienced colleagues interested and motivated
- having an annual training and development plan, which is supported by a training matrix that records:
- the available courses and timetable and
- which groups of employees should be attending
- detailing major changes updates to operational procedures and information technology (IT) support systems to include details of major changes
- having a dedicated training officer with responsibility for all aspects of training and development for benefit service employees
- developing a knowledge management system that is designed to support a programme of continuous improvement in administration that matches the steps needed to meet the strategic vision for the benefits service
- cross-cutting teams of managers and more junior employees working together to identify ways of improving the benefits service that feeds into the training and development strategy and plans
- managers encouraging upward feedback from customer-facing employees on customer needs and types of customer case that they need more training on
- analysing information on customer experiences, complaints, appeals and Local Government Ombudsman (LGO) complaints and using them as feedback to improve performance and to identify group and individual training needs
- providing mentors to trainees and new recruits
- having a formal new entrant induction and training programme. LAs could use one of the on-line training packages available through the private sector or a professional body. If using the new entrant's peer group or line manager to deliver induction training ensuring that they have the following experience and knowledge and be able to demonstrate the skills listed:
- knowledge and at least two years experience of HB/CTB
- ability to assimilate and present information from legislation, manuals, guides, circulars, IT, etc.
- knowledge of other welfare benefits and the benefit system
- principles of decision making
- ability to explain technical material simply, clearly and accurately
- understanding of customer service and customer groups
- knowledge of own LA procedures and computer systems.
- ensuring all new employees to benefits spend at least one day in the Investigation and Visits section as part of their induction
- having procedural guidance that:
- at least covers all aspects of the benefits service and which has a basis in law that the LA must comply with, for example statutes and regulations
- reflects guidance and good practice as put forward in DWP Circulars, and by Audit Commission, Audit Wales, Audit Scotland and Chartered Institute for Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA)
- provides an accurate, up-to-date guide to actual practice within the LA
- is written in plain English that both practitioners and managers can understand
- is completely documented, with reference to all the regulations and current circulars, and is readily available to each section or work group
- fhas changes, notified by DWP, incorporated within 10 working days of receipt by the LA
- includes a formal management-controlled process for developing and changing local procedures
- covers all aspects of the local benefits delivery (including descriptions of all local procedures) in addition to those which have a basis in law, for example local customer service and inter-agency liaison arrangements
- supports delivery of the strategic plan of the benefits service.
- conducting periodic reviews of procedures, to measure their effectiveness and their efficiency
- implementing procedural changes that reflect the outcome of reviews
- securing and maintaining Investors in People accreditation
- training verification staff from the DWP’s National Identity Fraud unit
- holding an annual ‘achievement evening’ which rewards individual and team performances
There are some useful hints and tips for mentors delivering new entrant training, including:
- plan and prepare for training
- issue new staff with a training plan in the early stages of their employment detailing the timetable the modules will be presented in
- use lots of real examples to reinforce learning
- encourage new entrants to research topics/areas using benefit guides, manuals etc.
- arrange for new entrants to sit in with other business areas, such as Fraud and Customer Services, at appropriate points within their training programmes
- personalise training for different work environments
- break modules into manageable parts
Home working
Feedback from LAs has shown that an established home working policy, evening working and ongoing training help to retain employees.
General considerations
Good practice includes:
- consulting with existing employees and their representatives on flexible working and work-life balance prior to developing a home working policy
- ensuring any home working policy includes:
- details of how work will be managed and checked (for quality and consistency)
- details of health and safety issues and risk assessment relating to home working staff
- office-based attendance requirements for the purpose of meetings, performance reviews, training etc.
- developing clear home working criteria that staff must meet to be selected for home working
- establishing the required hours of work for home workers around IT availability and support
- agreeing a core set of hours within which home workers would be available for colleagues to contact them
- ensuring compliance with regulations regarding hours of work and rest breaks
IT support
Good practice includes:
- having in place an electronic document management system that allows for line managers to allocate, monitor and check work from their main office
- establishing, from the outset, a good working relationship with IT support by involving them in the design and set up of the home working project
- having in place, and monitoring, a Service Level Agreement
Health and safety
Good practice includes:
- ensuring full health and safety assessments by a qualified officer take place at the residence of home workers
- making sure that any health and safety code of practice covers home working
Performance management
Good practice includes:
- ensuring that work distribution and outputs are fully monitored
- reviewing performance of both home working and office based staff on a regular basis and addressing irregularities in quality and/or output performance
- putting in place a communication plan showing how line managers will keep in touch with home working staff, for example, using instant messaging or MSN
- putting in place arrangements to ensure home workers are kept well informed of legislative and procedural changes and social activities
- considering whether any management training is required which would support line managers with responsibility for home working staff.
Data protection and security
Good practice includes ensuring home working policy contains mandatory requirements for home working staff to ensure all information is secure and cannot be accessed or viewed by a third party.
Evening shift
Good practice includes:
- arranging for appropriate risk assessments to be done and liaise with any unions before going ahead with shift working
- ensuring the building alarm system and procedures for fire/bomb scares are updated to include evening shift
- considering a minimum of two people to be present so holiday and sickness are covered
- putting a plan into place to handle emergency issues during the shift with home telephone numbers to be made available to the shift team to use
- considering carefully the times the team will work and exactly what they will do
- preventing the team feeling isolated, considering arranging for their start time to overlap with the daytime employees' finish time to allow a handover. This can help prevent the team from feeling isolated and give them a sense of belonging
- considering earlier start and finish times on a Friday, as this can improve employee retention
- ensuring the Team Leader is experienced if the other team members are inexperienced
- considering training issues, will the training officer work evenings, or your team train during the day
- restricting their work to new claims initially and gradually introducing change of circumstance to their workload if the employees are new to benefits
- using the evening shift team to tackle problem areas within their expertise, as they will not have customer phone calls to deal with
- considering the hours of work carefully as recruitment can be difficult
- highlighting the appeal to certain demographics, such as parents with childcare issues when advertising for evening shift employees
Training existing employees
Good practice includes:
- ensuring that some form of ongoing external training or on-line training package is provided if you do not have a dedicated training officer
- considering using a shared training provider with neighbouring authorities in similar situation
- ensuring any training starts with a training needs analysis to ensure training is tailored to actual needs and prioritised in order of need. This ensures efficiency and cost-effectiveness of training and helps ensure delegates are enthusiastic about that training
