Workforce | ADEPT

Local authorities are experiencing a crisis in workforce recruitment and retention, leading to skills gaps that are having a serious impact on how councils provide services.

ADEPT has been working in partnership with Colas to bring together key partners to examine the specific challenges in place services. We held roundtables considering four topics:

Attraction of young people
Staff retention
Future skills/jobs, and
Equality diversity and inclusion (EDI).

Retention toolkit

Staff retention has been a problem for local government for some time. Often in competition with the private sector, councils cannot offer the same salaries or career progression opportunities. As a result, it can be difficult to keep hold of skilled employees.

To support councils and help address this, in partnership with Colas, we have published a new toolkit - Employee Retention – a great practice guide.

The toolkit includes several case studies with ideas drawn from research findings on how to improve staff retention at all levels. The 11 examples include professional development, mentoring and support, offering a better work-life balance and training opportunities tailored to place.

Place for All

In partnership with Colas Ltd, ADEPT ran a LinkedIn campaign on equality, diversity and inclusion, bringing personal stories, perspectives and experiences to life.

Each story provides genuine insights into each individual’s experience, exploring the challenges they’ve faced at work, how they overcame them and changed their workplaces for the better. These stories have been gathered together into one publication: A Place for All - my journey.

You can also read the individual stories below:

Future workforce resources

We are also working on a number of other documents and toolkits on recruitment and equality, diversity and inclusion - more information to follow.