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.”
gov.je