It was PPMA Board meeting last week and we had a great turnout on a very hot and sticky day in London. I changed the format of the Board meetings slightly to incorporate a debate about the future of pay and reward in the public sector. We were joined by Jan Parkinson from the LGE and had an interesting discussion about what the future holds and how reward can be positioned to help drive organisations in the right direction.

Notes of the meetings are being written up and will appear on the website shortly. A follow up debate on the future shape of the public sector, our workforce needs and the reward system will be held in advance of the next Board meeting in September. It is hoped that this will then help shape and inform the national picture.

A number of our colleagues were lucky to be the HR Excellence Awards earlier this week. Although I wasn’t there it was a GREAT night for the public sector. he winners of these prestigious awards were:

• H R Excellence Gold Award – Winner: Birmingham City Council’s BEST Programme.
• Most Effective Use of Internal Communications – Highly commended: Cambridgeshire CC for Engaging Employees with Investors in People.
• Outstanding Employee Engagement Strategy – Winner: Birmingham City Council – BEST programme.
• Health and Wellbeing – Winner: Metropolitan Police Service for work to address Stress Management. Highly commended: East Sussex County Council.
• Best Public Sector H R Strategy or Initiative – Winner: Cambridgeshire CC for Engaging People with Investors in People. Highly Commended – National Offender Management Service.

Congratulations to everyone!

I’m off for a well deserved break for a couple of weeks now but my colleagues will be positing blogs on any items of interest during my break. In the meantime I hope you have a cooler couple of weeks and I’ll be back to blog at the end of July.

Gill

I’m just about to go off to the annual MJ Awards in London tonight at which PPMA and the LGE are jointly sponsoring the category of People and Workforce Achievement of the Year.

Shortlisted organisations in this category are Birmingham City Council (2 shortlisted entries), Fenland District Council, Hertfordshire County Council, Lancashire County Council and Winchester City Council. Good luck to everyone and well done for getting to the shortlist stage! I’m also hosting a PPMA table at the awards tonight which is an opportunity for PPMA to say thank you to our key sponsors and regional chairs/Lead Officers who put so much time into the work they do for PPMA. I’m looking forward to a great evening!

Last week saw the publication of my first opinion piece in People Management Magazine. I challenged colleagues to think more radically about the bureaucracy we often create around HR processes. My answer was to go back to basics and think about the real purpose underlying many of the procedures we have created. If you missed the article you can follow this link to an online version.

It’s PPMA Board meeting this Friday. It’s my first Board event and I’m taking a slightly different approach by holding a debate on one of my key manifesto issues. This week sees a debate on the future of reward in the sector and I’m delighted that our friend and colleague, Jan Parkinson, will be joining us form the LGE. Watch out for future blog posts on the outcome of the debate!

Have a great weekend everyone.

Gill

Last night I attended the annual ‘HR Most Influential List’ reveal at Claridges in London. What a great night it was for the public sector too!! The overall winner of the most influential practitioner was David Fairhurst from McDonald’s restaurants who gave a very passionate speech about employer branding at our PPMA conference recently. Other public sector people who managed to hit the top 30 were:

No.2     Clare Chapman from the NHS
No.3     Martin Tiplady from the Metropolitan Police
No.5     Angela O’Connor from the NPIA
No.14    Stephen Moir from Cambridgeshire CC
No.17    Gillian Hibberd from Buckinghamshire CC
No.23    Graham White from Westminster City Council
No.24    Anne Copeland from the Department for Children, Schools and Families
No.25    Kevin White from the Home Office

Eight out of 30 is not bad at all for the public sector. It was great to see friends from both the public and private sectors at the event last night and I never forget how lucky I am to be able to represent PPMA at such important events.

Well done to everyone in the top 30!

Have a great weekend!

Gill

P.S. The list is due to be published in the next edition of HR Magazine. 

Hello everyone, I hope you have been enjoying the beautiful sunshine over the past few days. As I settle into the role of President and find time to plan ahead I Would like to share with you more detail on my manifesto for the next 12 months. There are five key areas I will be focusing on during my year as President which hopefully will touch a nerve or two in your roles:

1. Driving efficiencies out of our organisations, both in HR services and in other services. Shared services will be top of the agenda for most organisations. More and more innovative solutions to cross organisational partnerships functions will be sought as we all try to squeeze every drop of inefficiency out of back office processes in order to protect front line services.
2. Pay in the public sector. We have seen the public outcry in the media over ‘gold plated’ public sector pensions and ‘fat cat’ bonuses in the private sector.  The time has come to radically review reward in the public sector. The pension scheme is not sustainable in its current format, there are too many barriers in place for people to transfer seamlessly between the various public sector bodies and the national pay process doesn’t take sufficient account of local variations.
3. Shaping radical change to the structure and function of public services. Whether we like it or not our organisations need to change dramatically to meet the challenges that lie ahead. No longer will we be the only providers of public services in our areas. The shift to commissioning based organisations will continue, new delivery vehicles will develop as we look to drive public value and stronger partnership working will need to be top of our agendas as we try to join up even more of our services for the benefit of the customer. All this requires radical re-shaping of our organisations and radical re-training of our people.
4. Social Worker Recruitment – a very specific issue but well deserving of our attention. We have a duty to provide the highest levels of care and protection to our most vulnerable people. We have to find new solutions to the image of social work along with sustainable solutions to the attraction and retention of candidates.
5. Leadership development. There has never been a greater need for strong leadership in the public sector. The task ahead is significant and the only way that people will follow is by having a clear sense of what they are trying to achieve, a sense of excitement and confidence in the journey ahead of them and strong and confident role models at a senior level.

Finally, a very long blog post I know but can I also draw your attention to two new publications from PPMA. The first is on the Organisational Development Implications of the Shared Services Agenda, produced by Richard Crouch and Rita Sammons from Solace Enterprises. The second is a thought leadership paper on The Future Size and Shape of our Organisations written by Deloitte in conjunction with PPMA. Both are available to PPMA members for download from the PPMA website.

In the meantime watch out for a special focus on outsourcing in this weeks Sunday Times with contributions from PPMA and for editorial coverage in the LGC this week on pay.

Bye for now

Gill

I can’t let this week pass without saying a few words about the shocking revelations about MP’s expenses that have monopolised media coverage this week.

I’m sure everyone across the world of public service feels equally sad at the impact that these stories have had, and will continue to have, on the reputation of the wider public sector.

Unfortunately, members of the public will inevitably assume that practices such as those in the Palace of Westminster are rife amongst the sector. The damage that these stories will cause to the reputation and credibility of the sector will be felt for some time to come.

But what can we learn from these sad events? One thing we can contribute, as people management professionals, is to be absolutely clear that the value of integrity is fundamental to public service. This means modelling that value ourselves in our behaviour and practice. It means ensuring that our policies and procedures are crystal clear and that the expectations of our employees are communicated across all corners of our organisations. Most of all it means that we have a duty to speak out when we see behaviours at any level in our organisations that don’t meet the high standards of integrity that are expected by the public.

On a more positive note, I know that the vast majority of public servants uphold the very high standards of integrity expected of them. We should all be proud to be public servants and continue to champion the values we that we collectively share.

PPMA work I have been involved in this week includes replying to the many emails and letters I have received complimenting this years conference. Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to write and please remember to complete your conference feedback form which was circulated earlier this week. These should be returned to admin@ppma.org.uk. I’ve also given a number of media interviews most of which have focused on the issue of job cuts in the public sector – watch out for a Sunday Times Special on this topic at the end of May.

Have a great weekend.

Gill

The Public Sector HR Podcast team have just released their latest episode…a special show recorded at our recent conference in Manchester, featuring interviews with all the keynote speakers including David Ulrich, Jackie Orme and David Fairhurst.

 It gives a really good flavour of the three days - you can listen to it here.

 Gill

Well the time finally came last week for me to take over the reigns as President of PPMA from Stephen Moir. In my acceptance at the AGM I said how surreal the moment was as I had sat in the audience at PPMA Conferences more times than I care to remember never thinking that one day I would be wearing the chain of office!

It’s going to be a very hard act to follow the outstanding year that Stephen has had but we have a great team at PPMA and we will all work hard to make sure that this year is equally successful as last.

I took a bit of a gamble in moving our flagship conference to Manchester but I have to say I think it paid off. The theme for the conference was Purpose, Passion and Performance. All the speakers focussed on what that meant and were able to bring invaluable thoughts, ideas and debate to the bumper size audience. For those of you who were not able to attend, the speakers slides will be available for download form the PPMA website later this week. On the front page of the conference section you will also see a downloadable version of my opening address at the conference.

Copies of pictures from a very entertaining Thursday night can also be downloaded from www.prazzi.com/ppma2009  

I also set out my manifesto for the year at the AGM and this is something that I will be focussing hard on over the next twelve months. The five key areas of focus are:

• The efficiency agenda
• The changing size and shape of our organisations (see the PPMA/Deloitte thought leadership booklet on this topic that was distributed at the conference)
• The future of public sector reward and pensions
• The crisis in social worker recruitment
• Leadership of our organisations  

Watch out for more news on these issues throughout the year.

Finally, I also had the pleasure of meeting some wonderful people from PPMA, our sponsor organisations and partner organisations from across the globe during conference week. I was a pleasure to meet you all and thank you for your support at the conference. It is certainly a week I will remember for a long, long time to come.

Gill

Well, who would have believed that 12 months could go so quickly? I’m still a bit surprised that the PPMA conference is almost here again. As I write this post, I’m already in Manchester at the conference venue, with the team of people that are helping to get everything ready for the days ahead.

The conference run up has once again seen PPMA in the media including our incoming President giving some hard but necessary truths about public sector employment, especially in a time of recession, in People Management last week. I also wrote my last H R Columnist piece in the same edition of PM. I’m also sure the media profile for PPMA will again go through the roof this week as the conference gets into full swing (the cast of speakers alone merits this).

So, that’s really it. My Presidency comes to an end tomorrow at the AGM and all that remains is for me to thank you, the PPMA members, who gave me this wonderful opportunity. It has been my distinct privilege and pleasure to serve as President for 2008/09 and I look forward to continuing to serve as both Past President and Treasurer for the next 12 months.

In case you wanted to ask the killer question has the last year been worth it? The answer is a resounding yes from me, the real test is whether or not you, as the Association, also think my tenure has been worthwhile - I hope you equally agree.

Anyway, I look forward to seeing you in Manchester later this week - Gillian, over to you and best of luck.

Best wishes and thanks to all,

Stephen

Hi all

Sorry for not having updated the Blog for a while, my new job is keeping me pretty busy.

Anyway, a few things for information:

1. We are now only 12 days away from the PPMA Conference in Manchester - have you booked your place yet?

2. I’ve been busy beavering away updating the PPMA Constitution in the last few weeks (someone needed to do it). This will be ready for the AGM for Members to consider and hopefully approve.

3. I’ve got my final HR Columnist piece for People Management being published on April 23rd, which provides me with an opportunity to reflect upon some of the issues facing the HR profession for the future. I’m delighted to say that our President (Designate), Gillian Hibberd, will be picking up this Column in the future, keeping the PPMA name in lights for the coming year.

And finally,

4. I’m delighted to say that Communications Management, PPMA’s Communications and PR agency, has been presented with a Gold Award for its employment practices in this year’s survey of the “Best Places to Work in PR” Obviously we are highly delighted - especially as only 2 out of the 120 PR consultancies who submitted entries to the Best Places to Work survey received a Gold medal and only 12 in total received a medal of any description. It’s great to know that one of our key professional advisers is also being recognised as a great employer!

I’ll be doing my last Blog Post next week and will then be handing this over to Gillian’s capable hands as well.

Best wishes

Stephen

The sun is shining, I’m sat on the train from London to Cambridge and I’ve chaired my final PPMA Policy Board as President.

The meeting today was really well attended and supported by Regional Chairs and Lead Officers and gave the Board a chance to review the annual report submissions for the forthcoming AGM at the conference.

Reflecting upon my time as President, I had the chance to thank all the people that have supported and enabled me to do this - you know who you are!  Best of all, I get to attend the Conference this year as a Delegate and will enjoy what will be the best PPMA Conference yet and learn, from the best, including David Ulrich himself.

The Policy Board also debated key issues relating to Local Government Pay and Senior Salaries/FOI issues and it felt that some key policy positions were arrived at.

I look forward to seeing you in Manchester at the end of April, at which point this Blog will become Gillian’s to lead as well…I hope you have booked your places at the conference!?

Best wishes

Stephen