At the end of January, a team from Jacksons were joined by leading representatives from the Tees Valley from a variety of sectors to discuss employment and recruitment in the Tees Valley – in particular the challenges around staff retention, attraction and to share experiences on colleague engagement and welfare.
Everyone commented positively on the many high-profile initiatives – including those of Tees Valley Combined Authority and the individual local authorities – focussed on the development of the Tees Valley. There was universal agreement on a feelgood factor within the region’s business community – a strongly felt level of positivity throughout these extraordinary times underpinned by a confidence looking ahead. Everyone was encouraged by the very high current profile of the area and the opportunities available but this came with its own challenges – specifically staff retention and recruitment.
It was also acknowledged that employee thinking had changed during the pandemic.
Jo Davies of HR Alchemy gave us her expert knowledge of what candidates were looking for and how much it mattered how companies had behaved during the pandemic, what companies stood for in terms of their values, their emphasis on staff well-being and their culture at work. She stressed that employees now want to be valued and their well-being considered and that a good package involved more than money.
Discussing the hospitality sector John Lambourne -Richardson of the Hampton by Hilton in Stockton-on Tees explained that their experience during the pandemic of his hotel was different from much of the hospitality sector as unusually the hotel had remained open throughout for key workers and had not needed to use the furlough scheme for any staff. The hotel was now recruiting and this was challenging and there was pressure on pay partly due to the cost of living but largely due to staff shortages. The hotel had worked hard to engender team spirit celebrating birthdays, having film nights and enjoying each other’s company.
David Smith, CEO of Teesside Hospice made some very impactful points about managers needing to adapt their style post-pandemic rather than resorting to pre-pandemic ‘supervision’.
A discussion centred on leading and supporting colleagues ‘post’-pandemic’. A specific that was referred to was around those colleagues who have been in their place of work throughout the pandemic who have had a completely different experience to those who had to work from home. There was agreement that both groups felt in some ways the other group had had an ‘easier’ option.
Bringing back a coherent sense of team will require a high degree of emotional intelligence.
Helpfully, Christine Hall of TVCA told us that the authority was very aware that the pandemic had brought questions of leadership and management to the fore and so were providing funding and training for these skills available to SME’s in the area. She emphasised she was keen to hear from businesses as to what their challenges were and how the authority could help and to work with SME’s. She was pleased to hear everyone sharing their views and best practice and was very keen to be included in such discussions. TVCA will be establishing a working group from Business and Professional networks, as this is a priority sector for the Tees valley, with the aim of hosting an event specifically for the sector with the employers at the heart of the discussions.
From a banking standpoint, John Martinson, Branch Manager of local relationship bank Handelsbanken in Stockton-on-Tees, agreed that his bank was reviewing flexible working arrangements and that a management approach of ‘checking in’ with staff as opposed to ‘checking on’ staff was embedded to support colleague welfare. In terms of recruitment, he explained how the bank was considering new sources of staff in addition to the traditional routes. Plus, that the bank was increasing refining its own training plans to support colleague’s development.
Joining the group was Harry Rowbotham CEO and founder of Teesside Health Co specialising in wellness within the work place who pointed out that we need to train our managers to respond to the mental health challenges their staff experience. In addition, he emphasised that wellness can bond us together and that team bonding can make a massive difference. He reminded us that managers were encouraged to do welfare checks during lockdown and staff appreciated these. If these are stopped they’ll be missed and it is likely to have a negative impact if this is seen as a sign that welfare is no longer as important to the business. It was an important reminder to maintain the soft skills many have shown. The Best Places to Work scheme was mentioned as a way businesses can look to enhance their wellbeing programmes.
Talking about Jacksons, Tony Wentworth, Managing Partner said the firm was doing extremely well and the professional services market locally was buoyant. However, this was creating huge challenges in terms of recruitment. The firm had great retention figures but was finding it challenging to find qualified staff. In this respect the Tees Valley economy was a victim of its own success.
Another professional services specialist Bev Goodall, owner of AbacusBean has seen rapid growth and believes that it is essential that new members of the team gel with existing staff and understand the ethos of the firm. She says that the firm worked hard to bond the team together with outings and events and that she had become conscious as to how precious the culture of the firm was.
In general discussions, it was clear that everyone in the room was considering and meeting challenges on staff wellbeing, recruitment and retention of staff in a uniquely active jobs market. Jo recommended ‘stay interviews’ – that is specifically checking in with staff as to what makes them want to stay and what they value. She said they were proving very successful and were workplace health checks which provided very valuable data. We were reminded that businesses needed policies but needed good relationships more.
Overall, it was brilliant to be able to spend this time discussing with different sectors what they are doing to look after their most valuable resource the people who make their businesses work and to share best practice, challenges, and opportunities.
The Jacksons team are grateful to everyone who joined us and hope we will have many more opportunities to do this again.
