Therefore in order to bring employees Holiday Pay in line with the new system of paying both the overtime, additional hours and allowances and holiday pay at the same time (the month after they have been claimed) employees will receive their holiday pay in March for both January and February 2017. Thereafter the new system of paying holiday pay will commence in April 2017.

Communication will be rolled out across the organisation, however as Managers it would be good to inform your employees of this change.
 

Workforce Culture

Investigation Best Practice Guide -  Investigating employee misconduct or grievances can sometimes seem like an unwelcome task, especially on top of normal day to day responsibilities and pressures. However, failing to complete an investigation fairly and thoroughly can lead to the wrong outcome or not recognising where an improvement is necessary as well as in a range of other consequences, including the loss of valuable evidence to employment tribunal claims potentially costing the Council thousands of pounds. Our policies refer to carrying out a thorough investigation and we want to make sure that managers have advice and support on how they should actually do this.

The development of an Investigation best practice guide brings clarity, ensuring that all information is gathered clearly and fairly and that balanced conclusions can be reached. This comprehensive guide is aimed at managers and can be applied across a variety of situations and policies. In addition, Human Resources can also provide support, specific advice and guidance at all times during this process. So the next time you are involved in completing an investigation, remember to refer to the best practice guide to ensure you are confident you have carried it out effectively. Another handy reference guide to add to your management 'toolkit'

Workforce Culture Monitoring Guide

A Workforce Culture monitoring guide has been developed to support you as a manager, in making the most out of the data already available to you - for example making the best use of the HR metrics and Workforce Planning departmental reports. It will support you in analysing the data effectively, allowing you to identify any potential cultural issues and take action at the earliest stage. When you next receive departmental data you will need to:

• Review the workforce culture monitoring guide and work through it step by step
• Undertake analysis and identify areas requiring improvement
• Identify if your findings alert you to any potential issues and if necessary, identify what actions are required to deliver improvements. So the next time you receive this data, remember to refer to the guide to identify potential issues at the earliest stage and prevent them from escalating.

Other news...

Can we just remind you about the change to Long Service Scheme, which should also be passed to administrators.

Please don't arrange for retirement gifts as a new gift card scheme has been introduced for long service awards. Each award and meal voucher required administrative input at the point of issue and the point of reimbursement which amounted to a significant number of individual transactions carried out within HR and service departments. With projected numbers, this would almost double over the next five years.

Therefore, we moved to a shopping gift card to reward employees instead of the council reimbursing suppliers directly for each individual's selected retirement gift or meal. The gift card operates in the same way as private individuals would use gift cards.

The cards can be spent in the major High Street retailers and include food and drink, jewellery, clothing stores etc.

Disability Confident are working with employers to ensure that disabled people and those with long term health conditions have the opportunities to fulfil their potential. The Disability Confident scheme has three levels: Committed, Employer and Leader. Moray Council have currently acquired entry to Level 1 of the scheme which is called Disability Confident Committed.

The above badge replaces the previous 2 tick symbol that we previously used during our recruitment activities. This new scheme identity is a means of communication to inform the people we employ and any other disabled person that may be interested in working for us that we have a positive approach to employing disabled people. So if you see this badge on our recruitment adverts you will know that this is demonstrating our commitment to ensuring our recruitment process is inclusive and accessible.

Forthcoming Strategy Talks  (published in Connect)

• April: Information Management
• May: City Deal
• June: Safer Communities

Contact Us

If you need to contact us, we can be reached on the HR Helpine (01343 563261) or by emailing hr@moray.gov.uk.