Dear Colleagues,
This morning we had the first meeting of our new Personnel Committee. There was only 1 report to the Committee and you can find the details on our web site if you want to read up in more detail.
The report highlighted the increasing recruitment and retention challenges that we are experiencing as an organisation which place pressure on our workforce, as well as other workforce priorities we need to consider. We are not unique as a Council in experiencing recruitment and retention challenges, particularly in the current economic climate, but there are steps we can take.
We know that pay levels have been raised as a recruitment and retention factor and the Committee agreed today that we should carry out an independent review of our pay and grading structure to ensure that we are competitive in the jobs market whilst maintaining our commitment to national pay bargaining, our policy to be a median pay employer and being mindful of budgetary impacts. I’ll provide more information in due course but I thought it important that you get this information ‘hot off the press’.
Of course, pay is only one factor in recruiting and retaining good employees and we will be taking other actions too, which you can see in the report. You also have a part to play in supporting recruitment of high calibre candidates, through your promotion of the Council as an employer and don’t forget about our Refer a Friend Scheme too! We listen carefully to what you tell us about working for EDDC and will use this to shape our recruitment and retention approach going forward.
Mark
Know anyone who goes above and beyond at EDDC? Nominate them for the Birthday 2022 honours list
The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government is inviting councils to submit nominations for the Birthday 2022 honours list which will be published in June 2022.
This is an opportunity for those in local government to celebrate colleagues and stakeholders who go above and beyond their roles.
Nominations can be made using an online form. You will also need to submit two letters of support to Honours@communities.gov.uk.
The deadline for nominations is 1 September. An information pack is also available.
MHCLG is also offering training opportunities to help you understand the honours system. Details on these workshops and how to register can be found on the registration page.
Training Opportunities for September and October
The Art of Delegation, Motivation and Empowerment – for managers
Wednesday 22 September, 10am-12pm
NLP for Effective Communication - telephone calls – all
Tuesday 28 September, 2pm-3pm
Leading your Team and Raising the Bar – for managers
Thursday 7 October, 9.30am-12.30pm
Positiveness and Resilience – all
Tuesday 19 October 2021 11am-12pm
Decision Making – primarily for managers/team leaders and those that have to make decisions as part of their role.
Wednesday 13 October, 10am-12pm
(this is a follow on to the Problem Solving session that took place on 10 August, but can be attended as a standalone session)
If you would like to book a place, please email learninganddevelopment@eastdevon.gov.uk
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A Devon house is the first in the new series of Grand Designs. It started with a budget of £835,000 budget and ended up costing £2.5m.
Hux Shard was inspired by Dartmoor's granite Tors. The story of how the ambitious zinc-clad five-bed home near Exeter was created is the subject of Grand Design's new series which was aired on Wednesday (September 1 2021) on Channel 4 at 9pm.
The house is gigantic, covering 6,000 sq ft, with five bedroom suites, a gym, cinema room, study, utility room, open plan kitchen and living-space.
We recently ran in partnership with HSBC a financial wellbeing webinar and since Employee Wellbeing is made up of a range of different factors we feel financial wellbeing is particularly important as poor financial wellbeing can lead to a greater sense of insecurity and unhappiness.
We are delighted to have joined forces with HSBC to provide employees with a series of Financial wellbeing webinars to enhance our Happy Healthy Here programme. The first of the series of webinars is ‘Making the most of your money’.
The webinar will be held through Zoom, and only the presenters will have access to audio and video but there will be opportunity for attendees to ask questions throughout, participate in polls, and promises to be an engaging.
This is not a product selling opportunity this is genuine education in the community to help people towards a state of financial wellbeing.
Feedback from this webinar will help us to decide what topics are of interest to you to help decide future events so please do join up and help us to help you!
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We also produce regular newsletters and news on different topics, in the last week we have issued the following which may be of interest:
Newsletters:
Bouquets and special mentions
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East Devon workers have been going above and beyond and have received some lovely thank-yous this week.
Simon Kennedy ( Area Officer Exmouth town and sea front) has been nominated for a bouquet for coming into work on Sunday, not once but twice despite being off duty.
Especially deserved since the issues he came to help with were a traveller clean up and a blocked sewer. He was a great help to me as duty officer and made life much easier.
From Pete Blyth
Keith Bagwell, from Benefits, has been nominated for a bouquet for being so hardworking, supportive and always going above and beyond. His smile and infectious laugh lights up the room. Keep up the great work Squid!
From Anonymous
Lucinda Cliff and Sally Hutter, MSO’s from Housing, have been nominated for bouquets by Jenny Netherway for being such understanding and great colleagues and friends.
Tim James, from Property, has been nominated for a bouquet for the constantly high standard of his work.
The gardeners looking after the Seafield gardens at Seaton (don’t know the names), have been nominated for a bouquet as the herb border with the 'please help yourself to a little' sign is a really nice idea.
Robert Loveridge from Housing Allocations received the following from a customer this week 'I’d like to thank you all for your hard work but in particular to Robert for his professionalism'.
Sue Hodges, Home Safeguard Manager, has been nominated for a bouquet by Aaron Clark for going above and beyond her role to check in on someone’s welfare and just have a chat, completely work unrelated. Went a long way and much appreciated.
Rachael Hookings and Joanne Ball from Benefits have been nominated by Libby Jarrett and Sharon Church for a bouquet for their hard work and commitment on the new Firmstep Housing Benefit and Council Tax Reduction application claim form. Previously we have always purchased a hosted form. The form was developed on Firmstep by Strata (Roy Podbery) during a very busy time for the Benefits section. The feedback from Strata was that the specification Rachael wrote for the design of the form was extremely well written which made this much easier for Roy in developing an extremely complex form which is something that she didn’t have experience of doing. Rachael also came into work for a day during her annual leave to carry out the final checks and ensure that the form went live on our website on time.
Mrs Aldred wanted to thank Jo Smith from Housing Options and Cornelia Coker from Housing Allocations for the empathetic and kind way they handled her enquiries. She noted that they were clearly very good at their jobs and extremely knowledgable.
Nanette Giles from Rentals has been nominated for always going above and beyond for all our tenants, even if they aren’t in the area that she covers. She is always thorough and always has our tenants best interests at heart.
Chis Abbotts, Cornelia Coker, Tracy Humphrey, Karen Hope, Rob Loverage and Darren Hicks from Housing Allocations have been nominated for a bouquet by Hannah Manley for doing so brilliantly (especially these last few weeks) by keeping the service going whilst we have every team member on annual leave at some stage and preparing for our new starter next week. Such a resilient bunch of people I’m pleased to say are my colleagues and friends. Thanks guys!
Anna Herbert, from Governance and Licensing, has been nominated for a bouquet by the Payroll and HR teams for being in the office and scanning/sending the HR and Payroll post that regularly comes in, as well as printing off and sending confidential letters as well as generally helping out with the teams admin over the last 12 months. Without this support the tasks would have been much harder to accomplish and ensured we were able to process pay information on time. A big thank you Anna from all of us for making our lives that bit easier in these tricky times.
Nominate a colleague or team member for a Bouquet or Special Mention by emailing communications@eastdevon.gov.uk
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New exhibit at Thelma Hulbert Gallery: Hiding in Plain Sight
 © Judith Jones, Rural Retreat, 2020
In Plain Sight – The London Group & Thelma Hulbert and her London Group Friends
(28 August – 30 October)
This intriguing new exhibition marks the first collaboration between Thelma Hulbert Gallery (THG) and The London Group. The exhibition features major new works from The London Group in a range of mediums including painting, drawing, photography, sculpture and film. Each artist in the exhibition has hidden something of their choice in a new piece of work. The aim is to entice gallery visitors to look much harder and closer than usual at each work to detect what is hiding 'in plain sight'
Open Thursday to Saturday, 10am – 5pm.
New art history talk series: Art after the 1950s
 Ai Wei Wei image
Fascinating new art history talk series with renowned art historian, John –deepen your understanding and appreciate of modern and contemporary art.
Dates:
8, 15, 22 September
2 and 13 October
Time:
10.30am -12pm
Cost:
£10 per talk (£8 THG Friends/students).
| Name |
Job Title |
Start Date |
| James Laver |
Conservation Officer |
Monday 6 September |
| Rachel Payne – rejoining EDDC following a short break |
Covid Compliance Officer |
Monday 6 September |
Nature, art and wellbeing
 Are you feeling some end-of-summer / back-to-school blues? We can improve our wellbeing both by looking at nature and by creative activities. You can combine nature and art by making a simple moth for the “Moths to a flame” project. All you need is a few spare moments, a rinsed and dried plastic milk bottle, scissors and marker pens.
The team are now offering free online evening Zoom sessions, and drop-in sessions at Exeter Library. See Events — Moths To A Flame for dates, times and booking details.
Or you can Make moths for the installation — Moths To A Flame whenever you want, with these easy to follow moth-making instructions.
Everyone is invited to join this nationwide creative response. The project team hope to have a mass-participation art installation featuring 20,000 moths on display at Glasgow’s botanic gardens during COP26 - inspired by our energy systems, our relationship with nature, and our response to the climate emergency.
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