44 DEBATE


Mark Vaughan - Hive Land and Planning


Getting people into the business has been difficult. We’re an SME and we’re competing with Plc house builders, government agencies, with local authorities. In terms of the package, that is difficult if you look at the salary and the benefits.


There’s a lot of bad news out there and some people are looking for a safe harbour. Trying to entice them out of big businesses is hard.


We’ve got a couple of new recruits through contacts in the industry. We’ve got a good network of contacts and they have come through recommendations.


One of our key values is not having egos. We will always listen to our employees and gauge their views. Getting the conditions right around opportunities for growth is huge. So is flexibility and putting trust in your staff.


When it comes to retention, show people that you genuinely care, treat them with empathy. We’ve a core of people who have been us for a few years and they very much talk about ‘we’ as the business and when ‘we do this’ and when ‘we do that’. That is really heartening.


Regular feedback is also important and you must set the tone from the top. You also need to remember to step away from the blame culture. Give people flexibility, because they’ll enjoy it more and as employer, you’ll get the most out of them.


Claire Shore - Blackburn College Pam Pinder - ELE Advanced Technologies


We managed to retain all our staff through Covid and increase our headcount by 30 but as soon as the pandemic ended and other businesses were opening up people were leaving for 50 pence an hour more.


We are based in Nelson and Colne. People won’t travel up the M65 to come to us, and from the other direction, from the Halifax area, it’s not the best commute. So our recruitment strategy is to employ local.


It was very difficult to offer some of the hybrid working because we’re in manufacturing. We continue to support hybrid working where we can with office staff.


We have focused on wellbeing. We’ve introduced lots of initiatives, including mental health first aiders which has gone down extremely well.


We’ve launched an employee suggestion scheme. And we have also worked to get more 16-year-olds through the skilled apprenticeship route because we have an ageing workforce. We have to look at succession planning and planning for retirement. That is on the radar for this year. It’s key for us that we understand what skills are missing.


When it comes to retention a key area is knowing your people. If you know your team well and ask those questions like, ‘How’s your mum? How’s your dog?’ that goes a long way.


Dr Eliza Morgan - University of Central Lancashire


Claire and I have worked together on a project called ‘Leading Lancashire’. For the past four years we have been working with 3,000 business leaders around skills and competencies. As Covid hit we started to see sickness and mental health issues and that has really played into the recruitment issues we are seeing now.


Businesses have come together. They are talking and helping one another solve the problems. I don’t think there’s a golden bullet, but the way that businesses and higher education and further education providers can work together can really help the situation.


There is the sheer complexity of the environments we are operating in, and the challenges feel substantially different. It is how we rework some of our approaches. There is a real sense that listening to what employees want, rather than assuming that one retention solution fits all, is something that’s becoming fundamentally important.


Also, there is the sense that recognising and valuing the individual, helping them to feel connected to the workplace, means they are more likely to stay with you.


Something that would be useful for us all to work on more is the very nature of leadership and management. A Gallup poll showed one in three people didn’t feel they belonged within an organisation.


David Lavery - Adlington Law


I’ve never come across anything like the last year in the legal sector. There have been a lot of salary increases because the demand has been there, especially for conveyancers. It has meant people have been able to dictate really high salaries.


We had people coming for interviews for a junior position and they were requesting salaries higher than mine as a licensed conveyancer, and I’ve been doing it for a long time. It has been very competitive. We’ve tried all different angles, recruitment consultants, job boards, we’ve tried LinkedIn.


We’ve got a fabulous environment, low caseloads and as a family run firm we have that family feel to it. There’s training and we’re also one of the market leaders in an area of law as well, which is quite an incentive for people.


One of the other difficulties is a lot of people switched to home working and we’re finding it difficult to incentivise people to come back into the office. We tried home working, and it was okay, but for morale and productivity we found being in the office together we thrived and flourished.


When it comes to the right environment, it’s not just waiting until the end of the year and going, ‘Right. It’s time for a review.’ It’s having those regular chats with people and asking, ‘How are you? Is there anything we can help you with? What areas do you think you can work on?’


Businesses with an approach that works are thinking about their whole offer. They talk openly about what it means to work there and are open about the skills development that individuals will be part of throughout their time there.


They are also having that same conversation with their existing staff. When it comes to retention it is a conversation that is equally, if not more, important.


And when it comes to skills development it is not for businesses to come to providers and ask, ‘What’s available?’ It is for them to go to individuals and teams and ask as a first question, ‘What do you need? What do you need to contribute to your part of the business and what do you need for you now?’


There is nothing more soul destroying for a person who has already got lots going on in their life, inside and outside work, than being given a piece of development they didn’t ask for or recognise that they want or need.


Having the employment conversation with people, not just at the start but right the way through their time in a business, is important. ‘What would successful employment be like for you? What are your must-haves and where can you compromise?’


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