HR Bulletin - December 2021

INTRODUCTION

Merry Christmas!

Welcome to the December edition of the HR Bulletin. The last edition of 2021! There are some interesting articles below for you to escalate to your teams. For additional information on any of the below articles please contact: karen.baker@moray.gov.uk

DECEMBER PAY ARRANGEMENTS

A lot of staff will have already received their last salary before Christmas. Dates for December’s salary run are:

• SJC & Chief Officers – 30/12/21
• Supply Teachers – 15/12/21
• Contracted Teachers – 23/12/21

PUBLIC HOLIDAYS

The official public holidays for the Council over the festive period are:

• Monday 27th December 2021
• Tuesday 28th December 2021
• Friday 31st December 2021
• Monday 3rd January 2022
• Tuesday 4th January 2022

If you are a 7 day service then your manager will confirm the allocated public holidays for your service.

FLU VACCINATION PILOT SCHEME

Nearly 400 employees have taken advantage of a flu vaccination voucher, with many already utilising them. Please remind your staff with vouchers that they need to be used by 31st January 2022.

MENTAL HEALTH & WELLBEING SURVEY

Following on from the Mental Health & Wellbeing Survey completed in July, the results and recommendations for improvements have been analysed and the findings will be cascaded to you shortly. An employee booklet will also be shared on the interchange so watch out for forthcoming communications on this.

PLATINUM JUBILEE

In 2022, Her Majesty The Queen will become the first British Monarch to celebrate a Platinum Jubilee, seventy years of service, having acceded to the throne on 6th February 1952.

An extended bank holiday, from Thursday 2nd to Sunday 5th June, will provide an opportunity for communities and people throughout the United Kingdom to come together to celebrate the historic milestone. The four days of celebrations will include public events and community activities, as well as national moments of reflection on The Queen’s 70 years of service.

An additional day of annual leave fixed to 3 June 2022 (pro rata for part-time staff) will be given to all staff in recognition of this significant occasion, and schools have also been approved to close on this date.

Those staff unable to take the leave on this date because they do not work that day, or for service reasons, will be able to take the extra day of annual leave at another time as agreed with their line manager.

STAR AWARDS ARE RETURNING!

The appreciation scheme was really successful in acknowledging and appreciating the scale of effort being made every day by our colleagues to keep services going and bring services back on board during the pandemic, in place of the STAR awards.

We are pleased to announce the STAR (Special Thanks and Recognition) Awards are coming back in Spring 2022. They celebrate the achievements of employees as nominated by their colleagues/managers. The date is to be confirmed but watch out for updates shortly!

KICK START SCHEME

To tackle youth unemployment, the UK Government has announced that through the Kickstart Scheme, funding is available for employers to create a 6 month, 25 hours a week work placement for young people currently out of work, aged 16-24.

The recruitment for the kick start scheme is underway with various placements going live for applicants through a staggered approach, live vacancies can be found here findajob.dwp.gov.uk

Placements are still available for uptake by services and departments so if you would like to know more information about being able to secure a kick start opportunity within your team, or more information for a potential young person seeking a placement, please get in touch with Kayley.kearns@moray.gov.uk

LONG SERVICE AWARDS

After some delays in being able to progress the Long Service Awards (2020), we are delighted to be able to say that awards have now been distributed.

2021 awards are in process and will be distributed over the coming months.

HERBERT PROTOCOL

The Herbert Protocol has been developed through a partnership between Police Scotland, Health & Social Care Scotland, Alzheimer Scotland and the Scottish Government. It enables officers to quickly obtain information about a vulnerable missing person who has dementia, saving vital time in the early stages of an investigation.

It is based on a form that is completed by family/carers, in advance and kept in the person’s home or with relatives. The form holds personal details, a description, recent photograph, previous addresses, places of employment, other significant locations in someone’s life as well as their daily routine and information about past incidents of going missing.

The form is now available nationwide to optimise the police response to locate the person and return them home, safe and well, as quickly as possible.

Family members/carers can find further information and download the Herbert Protocol form from https://www.scotland.police.uk/what-s-happening/missing-persons/the-herbert-protocol

The Herbert Protocol form can be used together with Alzheimer Scotland Purple Alert, a free app designed to help finding missing people with dementia. If someone is missing, users will get notified via the app and can help with local searches.

PRE RETIREMENT COURSES

Affinity Connect are running pre-retirement courses to anyone considering retirement within the next 3 years. The courses will encourage a positive and realistic approach to a financially secure retirement and help employees make informed choices.

The booking process is changing for 2022, there will be an automated delegate registration system operated directly by Affinity, accessed by a link, (TBC).

How it works - Employees register online via a bespoke link, they’ll receive a confirmation email and a reminder email one week before the course date. Employees can also opt to receive a text message reminder 24 hours before the course is due.

When courses are fully subscribed employees will be able to register on a waiting list and they’ll automatically be booked should a space become available. If there are no date’s available, employees will still be able to click on the link and register their interest for upcoming dates.

All employee information recorded is for course registration purposes only and will not be shared with any third parties or used for marketing purposes.

In the meantime for more information or to book your place on a course, please email organisational.development@moray.gov.uk

SCOTTISH MILITARY COMMUNITY PAGE

The latest edition of the Scottish Military Community Update has been published on the Interchange: http://interchange.moray.gov.uk/int_standard/Page_134613.html

This month’s edition has information on the Covenant Report, Census 2022 and its relevance to the ex-service community, the new Samaritans app to support UK military veterans’ mental health as well as much more!

DIGITAL CHAMPIONS

The Digital Champions network is now live and available to help.

A huge thank you to all who have volunteered, we are very fortunate to have a wonderful team who are ready and able to assist with any queries.

Initial queries have ranged from using PDFs through to editing photographs, they have also contributed to a review of our eLearning platform. In December the digital champions will be involved in the roll-out of an IT skills survey that will be published in the New Year.

If you or a colleague have a technology-related query and need to know how to do something, please contact the Digital Champions team via DigitalChampions@moray.gov.uk with an outline of what help is needed and an available champion will be in contact.

Finally, if you are interested in becoming a digital champion please get in contact via the same email address and we will get back to you as soon as possible.

MANAGERS FORUM

The next Managers Forum is tentatively planned for Thursday 27th January @ 2pm. An invitation will be sent closer to the date to confirm the details.

In preparation for this session, we would love to hear what topics you would like to be discussed and if there are any managers interested in hosting this session?

Are there any emerging themes you would like to explore or do you have any examples of good practice you would like to share? All suggestions are appreciated.

Remember, although facilitated by the OD team, the topics and direction of the forum are led by forum members.

If you have any ideas or suggestions for future sessions please contact glen.dunn@moray.gov.uk.

DATA PROTECTION REFRESHER

The newly created Data Protection Refresher module is now available on CLIVE. This course isn’t designed to replace the full version that’s already available, this version is purely meant to be used as a yearly refresher. If you’re needing to refresh your or your team’s knowledge on the subject, then this is the course for you.

To access CLIVE follow the link: http://interchange.moray.gov.uk/int_standard/Page_107125.html

New courses and updates are currently in progress and will be available soon.

In the meantime, if you have any questions about CLIVE or courses that are available, please email organisational.development@moray.gov.uk

STRESS AT CHRISTMAS

The pressures of 2021 may have added to feelings of stress for some people, in addition to this, Christmas can already be a difficult time. With some uncertainty of how Covid will affect Christmas this year, there may be additional strains at a time already fraught with demands and the usual pressures such as expectations to socialise, financial worries, family arguments, additional cleaning and cooking, expectations to provide the perfect Christmas, heightened feelings of loss or grief and loneliness, social media (one-upmanship) and increased consumption of alcohol.

Time for Talking (TfT) provide psychological, emotional and practical support, which can be accessed by any employee when they need it, especially at Christmas.

Employees can contact Time for Talking on 0800 970 3980 or chat online to a counsellor through their Live Chat using the password TfTnow.

All chats are totally confidential, people don’t need to give their name or email address unless they want to.

Additional information on Time for Talking can be found on the Interchange http://interchange.moray.gov.uk/int_standard/Page_108013.html

RISK ASSESSMENT UPDATE

The Health & Safety team is currently improving the formats for carrying out various types of risk assessment (RA). A new form for general risk assessments has been completed and will be available soon on the H&S interchange pages. Work is currently underway to upgrade the forms for other assessments, e.g. Person Centred RA and New & Expectant Mother RA in the first instance. These will be added to the H&S pages as soon as they are ready.

The form for carrying out a Covid assessment for staff who are pregnant or who have underlying health issues has also been revised and will replace the forms that were previously in place for this. In time it is hoped that it will be possible to incorporate Covid risks into the new forms used for Person Centred RAs and New & Expectant Mother RAs but not while the pandemic remains at a high level. This means that separate Covid assessments will currently need to be carried out for the individuals concerned in addition to any general assessments required on account of their condition.

The continuing risk from Covid highlights the need for risk assessments – for both Covid and for general workplace activities – to be regularly reviewed. Circumstances change, especially in a fast moving situation like a pandemic, and risk assessments for workplaces and vulnerable individuals must constantly be kept up to date.

Managers should involve staff in this process. This is obviously necessary when it comes to assessments for individuals, but the principle applies across the board for example when doing risk assessments for operating procedures or use of buildings or machinery in a Covid environment as the staff doing the job usually have valuable insights into what is involved. Trades union colleagues should also be involved in the risk assessment process and this is largely channelled through the departmental health and safety forums.

Staff must also be kept abreast of the contents of the risk assessments covering what they do and it is up to service managers to determine how this can best be done. When it comes to the pandemic, managers should also be aware that there is a corporate requirement to upload all Covid workplace assessments onto the interchange portal that has been made available for this purpose. (Note that this requirement is only for general Covid assessments and not for ones covering individuals).

Unfortunately the pandemic is still with us and does not seem to be going any place soon, so for now it is vital that our workplaces are covered by suitable Covid assessments and that these are regularly reviewed, updated and shared appropriately. If managers need any help with this, they should contact the Health & Safety team on SafetyAdviser@moray.gov.uk.

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