Human Resources - People Strategy 2010-13

Jump to a section:  Our People Vision | Achieving Our Vision |  What Does The People Strategy Mean To You | Measuring Our Success | Our Nine Components

Our People Vision

Our people are proud to provide an effective policing service to the public. West Mercia Police is an organisation that attracts, develops, supports and retains talented people.

This People Strategy, endorsed by the Police Authority, demonstrates the commitment of West Mercia Police to enable our people to deliver an excellent service to our communities.
In order for us to serve our communities well, it is important that we recruit and retain a workforce that is skilled, highly motivated, healthy and well informed. Our people are proud to work for West Mercia Police and maintain a positive approach to their work in delivering our policing service. This will contribute to:

• the public having confidence in us and expressing satisfaction with our policing service.
• levels of crime and anti-social behaviour remaining low.
• communities feeling safe.
  
  

This Strategy incorporates a combination of change activity required to drive improvements as well as activities which maintain current good practice.

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Achieving Our Vision

Nine key components will enable us to achieve our vision. They will influence and focus our activity and actions over the next three years.

The People Strategy includes the broad objectives of how each component will be achieved. Underpinning the Strategy is West Mercia Police's commitment to equality and diversity, efficiency and productivity and also our commitment to the environment. It should be read alongside the Diversity Strategy and is also supported by the Annual Personnel & Development Plan, which is also approved and monitored by the Police Authority.
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What Does The People Strategy Mean To You?

West Mercia Police is committed to investing in you and aims to deliver the following during your employment:

You will:

• Have an induction to the organisation and your role
• Have regular reviews of your performance and your development needs
• Have access to a range of learning and development opportunities
• Have access to a Personnel and Development Team that will support and assist you
• Benefit from people policies that guide and support you
• Have access to occupational health and welfare services

Equally, we expect that you will:

• Embrace our Force Values
• "I act with honesty, fairness and respect in serving our communities and the people within them"
• "I take pride in working within an organisation dedicated to protecting people and upholding the law"
• "I always take responsibility; my contribution makes a valued difference"

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Measuring Our Success

We will measure our success by using a range of generic measures. These will be reviewed throughout the life of the strategy and there will be development of further specific measures for each component should this be necessary. Our generic measures are:

• Managed staff turnover rates
• Staff surveys
• Exit interviews
• Attendance rates
• Levels of people on restricted and recuperative duties
• Training evaluations
• Improved personal performance evidenced through the Performance & Development Review process
• Improved organisational performance evidenced through the Policing Plan

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Our Nine Components

Designing and Planning Our Workforce

Our aim is to create a flexible and resilient workforce with both the capability and capacity to deliver the services required by the communities of West Mercia.

We will achieve this by:

• Building a workforce structure that enables us to serve our communities most effectively
• Ensuring we have sufficient numbers of appropriately skilled people who are available in the right locations
• Supporting the individual needs of our people whilst considering the needs of delivering a policing service to the public
• Ensuring administration and processes support service delivery
• Providing an environment that promotes equality of opportunity, eliminates unlawful discrimination and builds good relations between people whatever their background
• Working with our partners to continuously improve the services we provide
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Managing Resources, Careers and Talent

We attract, select, retain and develop a skilled and committed workforce, reflecting the communities we serve

We will achieve this by:

• Ensuring our recruitment, selection and promotion processes are efficient, effective, consistent and clear
• Identifying potential and supporting our people in achieving that potential in order to meet the organisation's needs through effective succession planning
• Ensuring the appointment and appropriate allocation of sufficient people to provide the services required by our communities, whilst balancing the financial resources at our disposal
• Ensuring that equality of opportunity is managed across the Force
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Enabling Our People to Perform Better

Our people are clear on what is expected of them. Our environment is one where good performance is promoted, continuous improvement encouraged and poor performance addressed

We will achieve this by:

• Making sure every person within the organisation is clear about their role and how it supports the organisation in delivering its mission
• Empowering, supporting and enabling people to identify areas for improvement and to achieve their best personal performance
• Creating an environment within which people can confidently share their experiences and lessons learned
• Encouraging people to take responsibility for their performance and creating a culture where people feel confident to ask for support
• Identifying areas for performance improvement at an early stage, exploring opportunities to improve and supporting people through this process
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Learning and Developing

We encourage our people to take responsibility for their own personal development to meet the needs of the communities we serve and the organisation

We will achieve this by:

• Developing our people by providing them with the appropriate skills, knowledge
  and experience
• Making learning and development available to meet both organisational and
  individual needs
• Encouraging individuals to take ownership of and responsibility for personal learning and development, supported by the organisation where possible
• Ensuring methods of delivery are appropriate to the learning and development required whilst taking into consideration individual needs
• Ensuring that the right people have the right development at the right time
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Upholding High Standards of Leadership and Management

We expect our people to demonstrate leadership qualities when undertaking their roles. Where it is apparent that individuals have the capability to be come future leaders and managers, we provide the appropriate opportunities for development

We will achieve this by:

• Identifying potential future leaders and managers and encouraging their development
• Providing the skills, knowledge and opportunity to enable people to visibly lead
• Ensuring our leaders and managers know what is expected of them and are skilled in people management
• Supporting leaders and managers to endorse good performance and challenge
  poor performance
• Communicating that people are accountable for their actions and supporting them in making difficult decisions
• People demonstrating personal and professional integrity and values
• Allowing people to take calculated risks in order to achieve the organisation's objectives
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Ensuring Health and Wellbeing

We promote and sustain a healthy, safe and supportive environment

We will achieve this by:

• Providing and maintaining a safe and healthy work environment
• Ensuring appropriate policies and procedures support this objective
• Ensuring that all our people know their role in maintaining a safe and healthy
  work environment
• Managing attendance in a fair and supportive manner
• Providing access to effective occupational health and welfare services to all our people
• Regularly checking workplaces for health and safety hazards and taking prompt corrective action if issues arise
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Engaging With Our People

We ensure our people are engaged and involved in delivering our strategic aims

We will achieve this by:

• Embedding a public confidence and satisfaction ethos in the whole of the people management and development function
• Encouraging our people to develop new ideas and ways of working in order to deliver strategic objectives
• Conducting regular surveys of our people in order to seek opinions, to develop excellent working relations and encourage two way communication and acting upon findings where appropriate
• Providing feedback to people on their own performance as well as on their own TPU or Department
• Ensuring key messages are consistent and understood
• People taking personal responsibility to seek out information that will enable them to do their job more effectively and efficiently
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Recognising and Rewarding Achievement

We recognise achievements of individuals and teams in a fair and consistent manner

We will achieve this by:

• Ensuring recognition is appropriate, timely, relevant and linked explicitly to contribution made
• Creating an environment in which recognition is seen as vitally important and consistently applied
• Allowing managers to actively explore creative methods of recognition relevant to individuals and to teams
  Developing reward frameworks that apply remuneration policy and practice fairly, flexibly and efficiently
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Technology Supporting People Management

The technology, science and systems we use aid effective people management processes

We will achieve this by:

• Making sure our Information Technology systems support our people management objectives
• Reviewing processes and procedures to reduce administration and minimise bureaucracy
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