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Recruitment pilot success in key Government departments

06 April 2023


A major change to recruitment processes in schools, children’s social care, and health has seen significant improvements and results in just five months, as part of a pilot programme under the Delivery Unit to fill crucial roles in key Government departments. 

The team from CYPES, HCS, CLS and Resourcing worked across Government to develop a campaign style recruitment programme, which included targeted social media posts and a dedicated careers and recruitment micro-site for education. The pilot has removed unnecessary steps in the recruitment process meaning applicants have more personal attention, support, and information. The team encouraged conversations, changed perceptions, worked through challenges, and ensured the approach put people and their skills at the centre of the recruitment.

The new process also includes better use of data to improve time to recruitment, a strategy placing candidates who also benchmarked for the role in other suitable roles or training programmes, and automatic licence to work allocations for successful primary school candidates to match what is in place for secondary schools. It also focused on the provision of suitable key worker accommodation and a pilot ‘refer a friend’ scheme to cut social work recruitment agency costs.

Results include:

  • 13 teachers have been offered new roles in primary school
  • 11 UK supply teachers were in place for January to cover critical vacancies in schools
  • 29 new local teaching assistants; 12 started in January, a further 12 began training and placement in March, and 5 more have been appointed for the September cohort. One success story included a school who had a resignation at lunchtime and within an hour had a new teaching assistant
  • 63 enquiries received for the Jersey Graduate Teacher Training programme
  • 18 potential permanent social worker applications being progressed.

The team is also working closely with colleagues in Health and Community Services to continue to develop work to create clear pathways for international recruits, a mental health practitioner campaign, and adapting recruitment literature. The recruitment of 52 new Allied Healthcare Professional and Nursing / Midwife roles is now being supported by the recruitment pilot team. 

The pilot programme is now transitioning to the People and Corporate Services department, along with PeopleHub, to manage and will be rolled-out across other Government departments. 

Jo Spybey, Head of Delivery and Improvement Programmes, who led the pilot, said: “I have been privileged to work together with colleagues across Government to focus on improving our recruitment processes. I am excited to see this implemented into a business-as-usual model and to see it continue to grow. We really believe this new way of recruiting will grow from strength to strength.”

The Chief Minister, Deputy Kristina Moore, said: “This is a great example of joined-up working across departments and we are incredibly grateful to the team for their efforts to improve our recruitment processes. My sincere thanks to them for this fantastic piece of work, which is making such a difference to the organisation and meets our objective of stabilising recruitment in our frontline services. The collaborative way they have worked on this will, I have no doubt, ensure that great practice is embedded going forward and will have a lasting impact to our ability to attract and retain staff.”


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