A national committee comprising representatives across the peak Local Government professional groups has developed a sector wide strategy to help Councils deal with the impact the skills shortage is having on their operations.
In a session at the recent annual conference of the New South Wales division of Local Government Managers Australia (LGMA), Michael Sewell, Chief Financial Officer at Campbelltown Council and a member of the national committee, said that funding provided by the Local Government sector has been used to employ a project manager.
The project manager undertook a skills audit to identify where gaps exist. A series of discussion papers were then disseminated, resulting in the national strategy. This was launched at the National Congress of LGMA in Hobart earlier this year.
Michael Sewell said that the strategy is now being used to source additional funding from the Federal Government to put in place various actions to address skills shortage areas.
“Applications for Federal funding are based on community good and the benefits to be delivered,” he said.
He said a recent meeting with Federal Ministers Jim Lloyd, Andrew Robb and Sharman Stone had been very positive. The Ministers indicated they are supportive of the strategy and applications for funding.
Also speaking at the skills shortage session, Corporate Human Resource Manager at Blue Mountains City Council, Bob Bentley, outlined the processes his Council has put in place to attract and retain staff. He said particularly in the planning area, on some occasions advertised vacancies had resulted in no applicants. As a result Council has developed a number of short and longterm initiatives.
“The skills shortage is the result of a downturn in students entering planning, engineering and surveying courses, as well as competition for staff from the private sector and between Councils,” Bob Bentley said.
He described it as a catch 22 situation where the shortages create increased workloads and backlogs, stress and absenteeism, which all compounds into
increased turnover.
Bob Bentley said to attract and retain staff an integrated approach was developed comprising both short and longterm strategies. Short term strategies that were put into place immediately included:
- aligning staff salaries to market levels and paying up to ten per cent above this
- providing a flexible work environment with job sharing and flexible hours
- attending recruitment expos in the UK, leading to two extra planners being employed
- multiskilling surveying and planning staff to work across both areas
- outsourcing and use of contractors.
Longer term strategies include offering scholarships to high school students to enter Local Government, training administration staff to act as para professionals, taking on trainees and offering graduate and undergraduate internships.
To assist Councils, LGMA NSW has developed the Local Government Good Practice Toolkit – a web based good practice tool for Councils in New South Wales. The toolkit is made up of a number of modules representing various areas of Local Government practice, including procurement, asset management, development assessment, information management, integrated planning and reporting and most recently, workforce planning. Designed to build capacity by sharing expertise, over 80 Councils have already subscribed to the toolkit.
The workplace planning module enables Councils to identify and predict skills shortages and provides over 40 options available to fill shortages. Various hot tips are provided, such as improving Council branding and imaging as an employer of choice, study leave policies, succession planning and training, and much more.
For further information visit www.lgtoolkit.com.au
