MPS HR strategy

Report: 7
Date: 20 January 2005
By: Commissioner

Summary

A new Human Resource (HR) Strategy is being prepared to follow on from the existing People Strategy that expires at the end of 2004. A high level strategy for the coming years is presented for comment.

A. Recommendation

That members note the draft HR Strategy and are invited to comment.

B. Supporting information

1. The MPS’ People Strategy 1999-2004 will shortly expire. A new HR Strategy (see draft at Appendix 1) is required to set out a vision for people management in the MPS over the coming years.

2. This is deliberately a high-level strategy, setting out vision and outcomes. Annual HR Business and Performance Plans, informed by the Strategic Assessment process, will detail, inter alia, the work planned each year to achieve the desired outcomes.

3. The Strategy has four main themes:

1. Becoming an employer of choice.
   This reflects the need to attract and retain a workforce that better reflects the diversity of London, and to access the skills and experience needed by the business.
2. Releasing potential.
   This reflects the MPS’ commitment further to improve its management of learning and development for all staff, to ensure the abilities of our people keep pace with business needs. This relates not only to formal training and succession planning, but particularly to the role of line managers in supporting and facilitating individuals’ learning and development.
3. Developing leaders and managers for the future.
   There is broad agreement about the need for better, more consistent people management practice across the MPS. The aim will be to raise the status of people management as an activity, to create more able and confident managers empowered by a supportive HR function.
4. Using people effectively.
   HR aspires to play a more strategic and transformational role in supporting the business with modernisation, change programmes and finding more efficient and effective ways of using people to deliver MPS business. This in turn requires the HR function itself to become leaner, nimbler and better skilled to engage with the business to best effect.

4. The strategy was subject to initial consultation at the HR Conference on 9 December 2004, involving a range of interested parties including staff from local HR Units, representatives of staff support associations, representatives of Diversity Directorate and of the MPA. The collation and analysis of feedback is currently underway.

5. The new strategy will reflect and support the future direction of the MPS as set out in the corporate strategy. It also encapsulates the modernisation of people management within the MPS.

C. Equality and diversity implications

Equality and diversity are central to and implicit in all issues associated with people management. Members will note a number of explicit references in the draft HR Strategy to ways in which diversity and equality issues feature in the vision for people management. Where diversity is not explicit, Members can be assured that business and implementation plans will be designed with all due regard to equality and diversity issues and the needs of under-represented groups, and that the MPS will continue to improve our monitoring of the diversity impacts of HR policies, processes and practices.

D. Financial implications

As this is a high-level strategy concerned with visions and outcomes, the financial implications are not yet clear. Work plans will be clarified through business planning processes, and related MPS financial planning arrangements, including annual budgetary planning processes and the Medium Term Financial Plan. The financial implications of the medium term pay strategy will be managed in the same way.

E. Background papers

None.

F. Contact details

Report author: Avril Cooper, Head of HR Planning and Performance Unit

For more information contact:

MPA general: 020 7202 0202
Media enquiries: 020 7202 0217/18

Appendix 1: MPS HR Strategy 2005-2008: Enabling People

Introduction

I am pleased to introduce our new HR Strategy. Following a particularly successful period in our 175-year history, a new Commissioner is now shaping a new future for the MPS. Those who work for and with the MPS must deliver continued improvements in policing, and the way it is experienced by London’s diverse communities. HR will rise to those challenges and be a real enabler to that change process. This strategy sets out a vision for leading and managing people in the MPS over the next three years. It incorporates our partners, those who work for the MPS, organisations that hold us to account, and the people of London.

The 1999-2004 People Strategy took us through a period of unprecedented growth, which, whilst likely to continue, will not be on the same scale in the next few years. Likewise, it is now time for HR to build our capability – more than our capacity – to work in partnership with our business leaders to meet the changing needs of a modern police service. This means taking HR to a more strategic level. Forward-thinking, transformational HR will help the MPS foresee future challenges and their people management implications, and position the organisation to manage change effectively. This requires a highly skilled community of HR professionals, who are freed up from routine processing work to focus on enabling change.

HR will raise the status of people management and good leadership, and raise the capability of our managers. Through effective people management, we will make sure the skills and knowledge of our people are relevant to the changing demands of policing. HR will lead the way in ensuring that our people policies, processes and practices work in practice to achieve the standards of performance and behaviour expected. It must ensure that people are managed in an environment that enables them to fulfil their potential, to learn and to innovate. The impact of good HR is central to motivating people and reducing sickness, to providing more officers on the streets and inspiring confidence in the Service through their contact with the public.

In today’s complex and often ambiguous world, it is not always easy for our people, and particularly for our managers, to be confident that they are making the right choices and decisions at work. By ensuring that people fully understand and commit to the MPS’ values, we will help them live up to our high standards and expectations with confidence, and consistently behave in a way that inspires the trust and respect of not only their colleagues but also the people of London. HR will help the MPS to build the capability we need to promote our values through visionary leadership firmly backed up by consistent and high quality day to day management.

The challenges facing policing are great, and the MPS deserves a leading edge HR function to enable its people to meet them. This Strategy outlines how we will get there over the next three years.

Becoming an employer of choice

Vision

We will:

• Attract and retain the right people as part of the extended policing family
• Provide challenging and rewarding jobs that make a difference to the people of London
• Have a working environment where there is a real commitment to the MPS’ values, and where individual difference and work-life balance are respected
• Offer flexible pay and benefits that meet the needs of a modern police service

Outcomes

Our people will:

• Better reflect the diverse community we serve
• Have the skills and experience we need
• Are supported to manage the differing demands placed upon them
• Live the MPS’ values, and are supported in challenging inappropriate behaviour
• Understand how their contribution makes London safer

Examples of the work we will be doing in this area

• Implement a high profile Code of Ethics across the organisation
• Mount focussed recruitment campaigns
• Introduce multi-point entry and fast-track schemes
• Create smarter and more flexible reward packages

Releasing potential

Vision

Our people will:

• Explore their own potential in a way that meets the MPS’ present and future needs as well as their own
• Be managed by people who demonstrate their commitment to professional development for themselves and their staff
• Hold a dialogue with the organisation resulting in a personal development plan
• Know how to access learning opportunities, careers advice and other opportunities for development.

Outcomes

Within the MPS:

• Our people feel challenged and fulfilled at work
• Our people are more capable and perform better
• Better succession planning makes us more resilient to meet future demands
• There is greater representation of under-represented groups at more senior management levels

Examples of the work we will be doing in this area

• Implement and improve schemes to meet the particular needs of high performers, both police officers and police staff
• Use the HR Evaluation process to drive up the quality of PDRs
• Implement career pathways to help people manage their own career development
• Provide more flexible, accessible learning opportunities
• Use IT to fully exploit the potential of the Integrated National Competency Framework to identify individuals for promotion and aid effective deployment of people

Developing leaders and managers for the Future

Vision

Our leaders will:

• Be confident role models of MPS values
• Be individually committed to achieving excellence in people management, and be developed and supported to fulfil the MPS’ high expectations
• Adapt their leadership styles to meet the diverse challenges they face
• Make good and timely decisions on people management issues, supported by a capable, empowering HR function
• Manage performance to meet MPS objectives
• Be empowered and be able to empower others

Outcomes

Our people will:

• Be motivated, flexible and have confidence in their leaders
• Contribute more effectively to the performance of individuals, teams and the MPS
• Build productive partnerships based on trust and respect
• Feel confident to make reasoned decisions and judgments
• Have access to streamlined HR policies, procedures and practices that are implemented consistently and well across the MPS

Examples of the work we will be doing in this area

• Develop management and leadership capability through initiatives such as the Leadership Academy and the Core Leadership Development Programme
• Develop and implement an employee relations strategy
• Ensure promotion, pay and performance management processes reward good leadership
• Institute processes to confirm that all leaders, from Management Board downwards, lead by example (360º feedback)
• Make our people policies less prescriptive, simpler and more accessible

Using people effectively

Vision

Within the MPS:

• Greater HR capability – rather than capacity – will enable us to deliver innovative HR services more efficiently and with more skill
• A modern HR function will enable corporate change and development rather than focusing on routine processing work
• HR processes, systems and practices will fully support our aims and strategy
• HR will enable the MPS to plan and use all its people resources to maximum effect and more efficiently

Outcomes

The MPS has:

• HR at the heart of corporate change initiatives as an enabler to realistic, sustainable progress
• A modern and flexible workforce in the right numbers, with the right mix of skills and experience
• Better attendance and fewer accidents and incidents at work, particularly major accidents and incidents
• Accurate, complete HR data that is used intelligently to inform management and deployment decisions

Examples of the work we will do in this area

• Develop people resource planning processes to help managers across the MPS predict and plan for future requirements
• Review all HR processes to ensure they help us achieve our strategic goals, and that they deliver effective, efficient, timely and proportionate responses to business need
• Play a leading role in implementing programmes of civilianisation, workforce modernisation and police reform
• Find ways to free up the HR community from routine processing work to focus on enabling strategic change.

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