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Introduction from Chief Constable
3. Supportive Leadership and Wellbeing
6. Professional Development Review
8. Operational Effectiveness - Deployability
9. Recognition and Appreciation
We are committed to being an anti-discriminatory organisation. This means not only acting in a non-discriminatory way, but addressing systemic inequalities, disadvantage and discrimination.
Policing is delivered by people and I believe that putting our staff at the heart of all that we do is not only the right thing to do but also the best way in which to ensure that we are able to deliver great service to communities in Gloucestershire.
This is why we have set out our commitment within Our People Approach. It provides clear priorities for the work that we are doing to support, develop and recognise the contribution of all of our workforce.
As a Constabulary, we aspire to be an ‘Employer of Choice’ with strong values, innovation and a sense of pride and history. As an Employer of Choice, we want to
recruit, retain and develop colleagues encouraging people to join us from all communities, including those traditionally underrepresented within the Constabulary. Gloucestershire Constabulary is committed to being an anti-discriminatory organisation. This means not merely refraining from acting in a discriminatory way, but taking proactive steps to confront and remedy the effects of existing and systemic discrimination in all its forms within our organisation and in our work. We have a unique opportunity through the national uplift
programme and local growth of our workforce to really make a difference in reflecting the community that we serve and we are working hard through our commitment to equality, diversity and inclusion (known as Better Together) to make a step change in representation across all staffing groups.
The welfare and wellbeing of our workforce has been an important area of focus for us over the past few years and will continue to be a central theme in all of our leadership approaches. We have a fantastic workforce and whether or not you are a frontline officer, a volunteer or a member of police staff – as members of our ‘One Policing Team’ everyone has a part to play and I want to take this opportunity to thank you all for everything that you do.
The corporate strategy sets out our ‘one team’ approach, recognising the diverse people and roles that make up our Constabulary team and where every member is valued for their individual difference and contribution. Our ambition is to become an Employer of Choice, where our people are proud to come to work and where members of our community want to work for us. The ‘People are our greatest asset’ objective set out in the corporate strategy is underpinned by the three basecamps of, Supportive Leadership and Wellbeing and Standards Matter and Better Together.
Our People Approach centres around our core mission of keeping people safe from harm. We are continuously looking to develop ways in which we support our people to achieve this aim. That is why we have closely aligned our people approach to our new strategic objective ‘magnificent people’;
We want to:
The PCC has committed to increase our workforce during his term of office, this increase includes police officers, PCSOs, Volunteer PCSOs and Special Constables. Additional call handlers, police staff investigators and other staff, whose job is to provide excellent service to victims of crime, are also being recruited. This investment in people is all about providing a better service to the public, with a more comprehensive focus on the care of victims, leading to a faster and more effective response when dealing with crime.
Through the delivery of Our People Approach, we will:
We have set out a clear framework which shows how Our People Approach links together:
Our aim is to be an Employer of Choice. This recognises the position we hold as the fifth largest employer in Gloucestershire. We want people to choose to work for the Constabulary, we want people to share our mission to keep people safe from harm and to buy into and demonstrate our core values which are:
We always act in line with the values of the police service and the Code of Ethics for the benefit of the public.
We show impartiality throughout all our dealings with colleagues, partners and members of the public. This is achieved by being unprejudiced, fair and objective.
We are transparent in our actions, decisions and communications with both the people we work with and those we serve. This ensures that we are honest and open in our interactions and decision-making.
We are dedicated to work in the public interest, engaging and listening to their needs and concerns. We work to make sure that the public feel valued and engaged, which helps to build confidence in the police service.
We will deliver our aim of being an employer of choice through the three basecamps highlighted in our Corporate Strategy. They are:
Our most important asset is our people and we are committed to maintaining a leadership culture where all staff feel supported and valued and job satisfaction is high. We take the health and wellbeing of our staff seriously including becoming more trauma informed, building resilience and proactively providing early intervention and support.
By supporting our staff at all levels to thrive, they are able to deliver the very best service they are able to give and that our public expect and this will contribute to becoming an employer of choice.
The Leadership Academy’s programmes and initiatives will embed Supportive Leadership and Wellbeing, Standards Matter and Better Together throughout the organisation.
Listening to feedback from staff surveys, evaluations and feedback from leaders within the organisation, we will build our Leadership Academy offer to create clear pathways that articulate what leadership development opportunities exist at appropriate stages of an individual’s career.
Through the Leadership Academy we will focus on:
The Sabrina Centre is a clear statement from Gloucestershire Constabulary and the OPCC that we care about the wellbeing of our people and their professional development and our modern agile programme will help them on that journey.
Standards matter to us because we strive to be a Constabulary that inspires trust, confidence and pride among the communities we serve.
Our workforce must inherently possess the values, attitudes and awareness that drive highly inclusive, ethical behaviour in everything that we do including:
Gloucestershire Constabulary’s approach to diversity, equality and inclusion. We chose the phrase ‘Better Together’ as it recognises that effective, legitimate policing is enhanced through working closely with all of our communities, staff and volunteers seeking to understand, value and support difference.
Our approach will be underpinned by national advice and guidance such as the NPCC Vision 2025, relevant legislation such as the Public Sector Equality Duty (relating to the Equality Act 2010) and our understanding of local communities.
Our aspiration is for Gloucestershire Constabulary to be fully representative of the communities it serves. We are working hard to build a diverse workforce in which all individuals feel positively included and are able to flourish because we know that we are ‘Better Together’ as individuals, teams and with our communities.
Our three Base camps are fundamental foundations of our success and should be visible in everything we do.
We place such a degree of importance on our basecamps that each has a dedicated Approach, delivery plan and senior champion to ensure effective governance and progress.
To support the delivery of our basecamps, we have a number of enabling priority areas which focus on people and workforce development these are:
Our staff deserve leaders who demonstrate their commitment to supporting them including looking after their wellbeing. An important tool to help understand the aspirations and contributions of individual colleagues is the Professional Development Review. We are focusing on this as a key enabler for individuals and leaders moving forward.
We will:
Policing is delivered by people and we believe that it is important to develop our workforce to ensure that all individuals have the skills and knowledge they need to carry out their roles and reach their full potential. This means investing in the development of our people – across all teams of police officers, PCSOs, police staff and police volunteers.
Effective workforce planning will be at the heart of our workforce development approach. This means planning, to make sure that we have the right people with the right skills deployed in the right way to deliver outstanding service to the public. The right people will be those that share our values and we will recruit for values and train for competence.
An important part of developing and managing our workforce is ensuring that we are making best use of our workforce ensuring that we are operationally effective through the deployment of appropriate people resources across our organisation. The implementation of an updated Core HR System will further support our workforce development approach and effective workforce planning.
We will:
The ability to effectively deploy our people resources to our operational demand is critical to keep the public safe from harm. This means we need to be clear about the demand for our people resources and the constraints on those resources. An important part of this is to ensure that we are able to effectively balance the needs of individuals with the demands of operational deployment. As a result of increasing levels of absence and increased levels of adjusted duties officers, a specific piece of work is underway in this area.
We will:
Rewarding and recognising our staff for their contribution is an important part of ensuring our staff feel valued. We also recognise the particular challenges that increased cost of living and other expenses are having on many colleagues and through our wellbeing approaches will do all that we can to ensure staff are aware of the mechanisms of support available to them.
Pay arrangements are set out nationally for the police service and the Constabulary actively engages in national consultation frameworks to inform and help shape pay submissions as part of the NPCC Workforce Portfolio. Whilst national pay frameworks are outside of the remit of the Constabulary, where there is opportunity to locally recognise outstanding contribution through other reward mechanisms, we will actively seek to do so.
We will:
Over recent months the Constabulary has adapted its working practices to meet the external demands placed on it. In line with our ambition to be an Employer of Choice, we will continue to develop opportunities for agile working for our people wherever possible. This means having the flexibility to work from a variety
of Constabulary workspaces or even home or other public spaces as needed and when appropriate. We recognise that agile working will mean different things to different job roles and we will endeavour to provide as much flexibility within the constrictions of roles. This will be enabled through providing appropriate technology such as mobile devices to frontline staff which will support them operating in an agile way from various locations. Opportunities for agile working for police staff will be encouraged where practicable. This will be continuously reviewed in response to the environments in which we operate.
We will:
Engaging and listening to our staff is an important theme underpinning Our People Approach. We use a number of means to engage with our staff to get the widest view of what our people are thinking and how they are feeling.
We use the feedback and information we receive from our staff as an important part of our evidence base to improve performance and enable organisational development. This allows us to shape our response and our plans in an informed way and to reflect the things that our staff tell us are important to them.
We will:
The Deputy Chief Constable is the strategic lead for People and oversees the work of the People Development Board and the delivery of Our People Approach. The People Development Board have a number of working groups and supporting delivery frameworks all of which can be viewed in the Corporate Governance Framework.
Download 'Our approach to people' as a PDF file. Please note that this file may not be suitable for users of assistive technology.