People Strategy

Warwickshire Police and West Mercia Police

2015-2018 People Strategy

Our people are at the heart of the alliance

Chief Constables’ Foreword

Warwickshire Police and West Mercia Police have formed a ground breaking alliance, operating

as two forces with one vision in one alliance. We will continue to successfully work together to

deliver protection to our communities whilst meeting the financial challenges that we face now

and over the coming years.

The alliance has been nationally recognised for the substantial progress made with many other

forces looking at the journey, infrastructure and harmonisation supporting this innovative

operating model, which has resulted in significant savings for both forces against a backdrop of

reduced budgets.

The challenges continue for the alliance and police service as a whole, as public expectations

and the complexities of policing increase and policing budgets continue to decrease, presenting

challenges for workforce morale, motivation, capacity and capability.

In order to meet the challenges of the next few years, the StraDA programme has been set up

with a vision to:

“strengthen and deepen the alliance between Warwickshire Police and West

Mercia Police to protect people from harm“

We recognise the need for fundamental transformational change across the two forces in order

to continue to deliver policing services with a significantly reduced budget.

Our policing model and the shape and size of our organisation continues to change whilst

demands continue to increase. It is therefore vital that we shape our workforce and

environment to meet such changes.

Recruiting and retaining the right people and maximising the contribution each and everyone

makes is more critical than it has ever been to achieve the alliance vision and support the

delivery of the police service.

This People Strategy sets out the approach Warwickshire Police and West Mercia Police will

take to meet such challenges in respect of our people over the next three years. We aim to

become the consistent employer of choice for those who live within our communities.

For the strategy to work, we will need the continual commitment from our workforce to deliver a

first class service in order to protect people from harm and equally we need to provide you with

the necessary support, tools, training, technology and working environment to do so.

Martin Jelley

Chief Constable - Warwickshire Police

David Shaw

Chief Constable - West Mercia Police-1-

Introduction

Warwickshire Police and West Mercia Police recognise that our workforce is our most valuable

asset, and as such our people are crucial to our ability to be able to realise our vision.

Our people need to be competent, confident and committed to deliver a policing service that

achieves our vision, operates in line with our values in order to sustain performance and

prepares us for the challenges ahead.

We need to ensure that appropriate strategies are in place to enable our people to maximise

their individual and collective contribution.

This People Strategy underpins the forces strategic and operational priorities and focuses on

how to achieve and maintain such a workforce.

Our vision:

• Protecting people from harm

To achieve this vision, we need our people to own our values.

Our values:

• Take pride in our professionalism and standards of behaviour

• Listen and engage

• Use professional judgement and be courageous in making decisions

• Seek out better ways of working

• Lead with confidence and do the right thing

• Work in partnership to provide the best service we can

Code of Ethics:

These values are underpinned by the Code of Ethics

which details the way in which our people can deliver

the best and most professional service possible to

protect our communities.

Vision and Values

Code of Ethics

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Our Aim

To achieve the alliance vision through our people, Warwickshire Police and West Mercia Police

will create a positive working environment, promoting a culture of trust where our people work

together, feel motivated and confident to challenge and strive to be innovative.

We will recruit, develop and retain a highly effective, diverse and flexible workforce to protect the

people we serve now and in the future.

Together we will maximise deployment and skills, nurture talent, and create opportunities for

personal and professional growth for everyone.

We will promote a positive environment where Integrity & Fairness, Equality & Diversity and

Continuous Improvement underpin everything we do to ensure the delivery of an effective and

efficient policing service for the public.

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Strategic People Priorities

The strategic priorities of Warwickshire Police and West Mercia Police will be achieved by

focusing on six areas:

1. Our People

2. Organisational Development

3. Health & Wellbeing

4. Leadership Development

5. Learning Organisation

6. Employee Engagement

Inte

grity

& F

airn

ess Equality &

Diversity

Our People

Organisational Development

Health & Wellbeing

Leadership Development

Learning Organisation

Employee Engagement

Continuous

Improvement

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1. Our People

We will attract, recruit and retain committed people who are proud to work for a forward

thinking organisation which values its people.

We will strive to remain competitive and be an employer of choice by providing a working

environment which

• has a public service ethos with high values, standards and integrity

• values its people and welcomes diversity

• is forward thinking

• offers flexibility and fair conditions of employment

• is safe and supportive within a family friendly organisation

• sees everyone working together as one team

• supports a varied and challenging career

• promotes learning and development of its staff

• enables people to develop transferable skills

• has open and transparent policies and practices

Our people know what is expected of them in the delivery of our services and they will be

expected to conduct themselves in line with our values and the Code of Ethics.

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2. Organisational Development

By focusing on the people related issues of organisational change, People Services will

influence strategic decision making to ensure the workforce is fit for purpose for the future

challenges we face.

We will adopt a comprehensive and proactive workforce planning and development approach

that includes talent management and succession planning to ensure that we make best use of

the talent available in our workforce and that our vision can be realised.

We will create a flexible organisation to respond to changes in resource and skills requirements,

identifying innovative ways of working so the organisation effectively protects people from harm.

We will ensure managers and individuals embed a continuous improvement culture to

constantly seek new ways to provide the highest quality of service we can.

We will at all times minimise bureaucracy in the processes and procedures we adopt for the

management of our workforce.

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3. Health and Wellbeing

The health and wellbeing of our staff is extremely important to us.

We will ensure the workforce understands their role in maintaining a healthy and safe working

environment to protect themselves, their colleagues and the public we serve.

We will ensure the morale, motivation and resilience of our people is maintained and improved

to focus on the delivery of strategic priorities

We will promote opportunities for our people to support and develop their overall health and

wellbeing to maximise attendance and the availability of resources to deliver our services.

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4. Leadership Development

We will develop and enable our leaders to achieve the best for themselves and their people, by

recognising and nurturing talent for the future.

We will create an environment where our people feel empowered to exercise professional

judgement, utilise their emotional intelligence and feel comfortable and confident to challenge.

We will ensure our people have the confidence and capability to deliver our vision and values by

developing effective leadership qualities.

We support the National College of Policing leadership dimensions which can be instilled and

developed at every level. This encourages a collective style and model of leadership that places

the leader in the role of an enabler:

1. Individual – everyone working in policing needs leadership attributes to be successful in their

role.

2. Operational – incident management and team effectiveness are critical.

3. Senior – more strategic yet still requires elements of command.

4. Organisational – involves the governance, executive and direction of a service at a systemic

level.

Desirable attributes in all leaders:

• driven by the core values of policing

• works with passion and energy

• retains calmness and clarity under pressure

• quick to adapt and confident to lead change

• has an ability to understand and exploit the benefits of technology and good business practice

• empowers, trusts and supports individuals to succeed

• copes with the challenges of emerging crime and public safety issues

• values difference and diversity

• readily accepts personal accountability while retaining the trust of communities and those who

they lead

• demonstrates resilience in responding and adapting to high pressure and complex situations

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5. Learning Organisation

6. Employee Engagement

We will invest in our people in a variety of ways which add value in order to develop a skilled,

efficient and effective workforce that reflects the changing needs and demands of the police

service.

Our vision and values will be underpinned by a learning culture which embeds personal

responsibility and continuous improvement in our people and the service we deliver.

Operating as two forces, with one vision in one alliance, we will embed our vision and values so

that our people are fully engaged and focussed on the delivery of alliance priorities.

We will ensure fairness, consistency and integrity through the application of policy and practice

together with transparent engagement within collective consultative frameworks.

We will provide opportunities to listen and engage with the workforce to understand current

organisational health and learning to identify areas for continuous improvement.

We will equip our workforce to communicate effectively internally and externally.

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Key outcomes

The following shows the direction of travel over the next three years. We aspire to move further up the

scale and into the green. We will achieve the key outcomes as a result of a targeted focus on people,

environment and culture across the alliance. A flexible operating structure will be required to enable

the following:

Low and fear of failure Measured and innovative

Risk appetite

Limited/restricted view Doing the right things right first time / good professional judgement

Adding value

Process based and bureaucratic Outcome focussed/ effective and efficient to add value

Service Delivery

Silo working Whole system approach, public centred / business like culture

Ways of working

Low morale, high sickness, staff feel undervalued High morale, low sickness, motivated and happy workforce

Environment

Limited and reactive workforce planning Comprehensive, proactive and forward thinking workforce planning

Organisational design

Average employer Employer of choice

Reputation

Rigid/restricted Modern, flexible and agile

Reactive, unsighted/uninformed Understand, respond, anticipate demand (intelligence led)

Limited/reactive development Commitment to professionalising and developing the workforce

Learning and development

Single skill/focus Multi-skilled, blended mix of roles

Blame culture Continuous improvement ethos

Limited, ad hoc development Accessible leadership and management development

Leadership

Unclear around vision and priorities Workforce are clear on the strategic focus and direction of travel

Directional and transactional Proactive and empowered workforce

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