Agenda item

Agenda item

[14.50-15.20] Update on Health and Wellbeing Strategy

Report of the Director of Human Resources, Organisation Development and Transformation.

 

This report sets out the progress the Council has made on delivering the Health & Wellbeing Strategy, the impact of the pandemic on our workforce and to the delivery of the strategy, sets out a plan to review the strategy and provides an insight into the Council’s sickness absence rates.

Minutes:

The Committee considered a report of the Director of Human Resources, Organisation Development and Transformation which outlined the Council’s progress on delivering the Health and Wellbeing Strategy, the impact of the pandemic on the workforce and to the delivery of the strategy. The report also set out a plan to review the strategy and provided an insight into the Council’s sickness absence rates.

 

Key points and themes within the report included:

 

·         Promoting and supporting employee wellbeing is a key workforce priority for the Council;

·         The Strategy is split into two thematic areas; ‘high quality working life’ and ‘mentally and physically healthy people’;

·         The impact of COVID-19 on the delivery of the Strategy, and how the Council protected the health and safety of the workforce whilst continuing to deliver services to Manchester residents;

·         The achievements of the Strategy to date;

·         Improving the financial wellbeing offer for staff is a key priority in the context of the cost-of-living crisis with the Council providing access to financial education programmes, counselling, debt management, affordable borrowing, salary advances and a meaningful staff benefit package;

·         How the Strategy will be reviewed through a model of best practice, staff engagement and workforce intelligence;

·         93,296 days were lost due to sickness absence in 2022, 27.4% of which were due to stress/depression and 13.5% due to Covid-19;

·         Adults, Neighbourhoods and Children’s Services have the highest levels of sickness;

·         Mixed/multiple ethnic employees have the highest sickness absence rates of all ethnicities and employees aged over 50 have the highest sickness absence rates.

·         Female staff also have higher sickness absence rates than males; and

·         The Management Attendance Policy and role of HR in managing attendance.

 

Key points and queries that arose from the Committee’s discussion included:

 

·         Whether remote working had improved employees work-life balances;

·         How many employees worked fully remotely and whether the Council would ever offer fully-remote working contracts;

·         The Council’s expectation that staff work from the office for half of the week, and whether this was operationally-led;

·         The process for employees reapplying for flexible working if their initial request is denied;

·         How consistency on flexible and remote working requests is managed between services;

·         Whether the staff survey included sections on health and wellbeing and flexible working; and

·         The significance of disability on absence and sickness rates; and

·         A lack of statistics within the report related to the number of sickness days caused by disability; and

·         What data the Council had on Return-to-Work meetings and the impact these had on recurrent sickness absence.

 

The Head of Workforce Strategy explained that the Health and Wellbeing Strategy was developed in 2018 based on the Council’s understanding of the challenges faced by the workforce at that time. The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the workforce and delivery of the Strategy was highlighted and this was reflected in some of the sickness absence rates.

 

Some key achievements arising from the delivery of the Strategy to date included membership of the Good Employment Charter, the development of a Menopause Policy, the roll-out of Leadership and Development Programmes and a Mental Health First Aid programme.

 

The Head of Workforce Strategy also advised the Committee that the Council had improved its financial wellbeing offer to support staff with the cost-of-living crisis.

 

A review of the Strategy would be undertaken soon and would be informed by workforce engagement and sickness absence trends.

 

In response to queries around remote and hybrid working, the Head of Workforce Strategy explained that sickness absence rates decreased during the pandemic when some employees worked from home.

 

The Director of Human Resources, Organisation Development and Transformation (HRODT) explained that both currently and throughout the pandemic, approximately 50% of the staff worked from the workplace due to the nature of their role. It was confirmed that approximately 20-30 employees were permitted to work from home fully due to either medical conditions or the nature of their work, although they were required to physically attend team meetings.

 

Members were advised that the approach to hybrid working and office presence was both operationally-led, in that managers examined the nature of their workforce and the work they do, and the benefits of working in the office on team-building and socialisation.

 

The City Solicitor provided an example of how lawyers within the Children and Families Legal Group often benefitted from working from home whilst attending virtual court hearings, as this provided a level of quietness and confidentiality and allowed better focus. She explained that the operational element of working and the needs of the service and staff were key.

 

The Deputy Chief Executive and City Treasurer advised that the expectation for staff to work in the office 50% of their working week was a rule-of-thumb and that staff often felt differently about working practices. Some roles were difficult to recruit as candidates often wanted to work from home.

 

The Deputy Chief Executive and City Treasurer commented that the Council needed to support staff to work well, regardless of their location, but there needed to be a connection between the workforce and workplace. It was her preference that team meetings and 1-2-1s were held in person.

 

In response to a query around the process for employees reapplying for flexible working if their initial request is denied, the Head of Workforce Strategy informed the Committee that a rejected application could be appealed to a senior manager within the service and that if new information or changes to circumstances had arisen, a new application could be submitted.

 

The Head of Workforce Strategy acknowledged issues around consistency in approving flexible working requests but commented that HR can provide support where applications are shared with them. Understanding and awareness of flexible and home working needed to be increased and a record of all approved requests was maintained. Figures on the number of flexible working requests that were approved could be provided following the meeting.

 

Members were also advised that there was a focus on health and wellbeing within the 2022 staff survey to understand the impact of work on this and these findings would be built into the Strategy.

 

The figures for Return-to-Work meetings were included in the HR Dashboard and shared monthly with Directorate Management Teams. Assurances were provided that HR Business Partners worked with Heads of Service in areas with high sickness absence rates and low Return-to-Work completion rates to understand patterns and impacts and how improvements could be made.

 

It was acknowledged that more work could and would be undertaken to address the equality impact of sickness absence. It was also confirmed that statistics related to the number of sickness days caused by disability were available and could be provided following the meeting.

 

The Executive Member for Finance and Resources took the opportunity to thank officers for their work on the Strategy. He recognised the need for the Strategy to benefit all Council employees and stated his belief that staff were the Council’s biggest asset and that every employee should be able to fulfil their potential, develop their career and provide the most effective service for residents.

 

Decision:

 

That the report and progress to date be noted.

Supporting documents: