Monitoring information
Policy/Procedure/Strategy: HR Strategy
Version: V1
Date Approved: 00/00/0000
Expiry Date: 00/00/0000
Date amended (if applicable) :00/00/0000
Owner: Cheryl Shayler
Job Title: HR Manager
Approval route: Board
HR Strategy 2014-17
Introduction
Teign Housing's Human Resources Strategy is designed to support the organisation's vision,
values and strategic aims and the continuous development and updating of our Corporate
Plan.
This strategy will provide a clear vision and direction for the future development of the HR
function and staff at Teign Housing. The guiding principles of this strategy are that it is:

Supported by the Board and Executive Team

Subject to regular review and amendment

Costed and resourced

Accessible and transparent

Committed to Equality and Diversity

Directly linked to our objectives and underpinning the delivery of the Corporate Plan
What is important to residents and staff?
Residents
Our residents vote annually on what “community pledges” they would like us work on and
for the year 2014/15 these are:

Anti-social behaviour

Customer care

Repairs and maintenance

Services for the disabled

Rent and arrears support and advice
These are agreed by the Senior Management Team and this strategy is in place to ensure
we respond to their priorities. These are achieved through planning our resources effectively
and through equipping our staff with the right skills to improve quality and customer focussed
services.
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Staff
We have developed a set of competencies for all staff which are kept under regular review.
As part of the strategy we have ensured these competencies are an integral part of Teign
Housing's performance management process allowing managers to systematically review
behaviour and equip individuals to self assess their own behaviour against Teign Housing's
expectations. These are:

Commitment to Teign Housing

Communicating and influencing

Customer focus

Embracing change

Equality and diversity

Leadership

Team working

Working efficiently and effectively

Accountability and taking responsibility are embedded in the competence framework
in addition to openness of communication and assisting others.
Contextual issues that will affect our decisions
We have considered what factors will affect our people requirements for the future. These
include:

Planned growth and organisational change

The effects of Teign Housing's changing priorities

Increasing need for efficiency savings (time and money)

Changes in working practices (for example trend towards remote working, mobile
working, hot desking etc)

Legislative changes, for example maternity, paternity

Evolving staffing requirements (skills, knowledge, behaviour)

Changes in Government policy

Changes in retirement and pension patterns

Increased use of technology (mobile working, security implications etc)

Need for collaborative and partnership working

Need for increased flexibility (for staff and residents)
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The need for equality and diversity considerations to be at the forefront
Strategic aim
This HR Strategy is intended to be used as a 'living' document'; for people to commit to, use
and understand it, as well as being flexible to adapt to a changing organisation with
developing strategies.
The aim is to ensure that we have a clear and positive strategy in place in relation to people
management and ensure that Teign Housing's future growth and development is in line with
our wider strategic objectives.
Targets
HR performance will be measured through a number of key performance indicators and
performance measures as follows:
Target Area
2014
2015
2016
Sickness absence
7.7%
7.7%
7.7%
Completion of employee appraisals
100%
100%
100%
Staff turnover
14%
13.5%
13%
Training days per employee
4
4
4
Strategic objectives
There are 4 main HR objectives. By addressing these objectives, Teign Housing will provide
a support and development framework for all staff, enabling everyone to proactively
contribute to achieving our vision and reach their potential with Teign Housing. These are:
1. Investing in our people – Recruit and retain the best
Pay and Reward
We must ensure that people are rewarded appropriately and fairly. We promote this both
financially and non financially as follows:

Maintain a cost effective and transparent reward policy that is flexible enough to meet
business need to respond to change.

Carry out surveys to ensure salary levels are competitive in order to attract and retain
staff of the required calibre.
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
Maintain and further develop a range of voluntary benefits and make these available to
staff.
Measure: These will be measured through Salary Benchmarking and Staff Turnover
statistics.
Recruitment and Retention
We must ensure that we continue to attract and retain high quality people who exhibit Teign
Housing behaviours and share our vision.

Maximise opportunities to publicise our successes and remain a "great place to work"
(staff survey 2013) in order to attract and retain high calibre people.

Ensure we maintain appropriate recruitment policies to ensure that we are robust yet
flexible to ensure we attract the right people for the right jobs.

Maintain an efficient and effective recruitment and induction process.

Retain a cost effective staff structure through regular review.

Recruit and retain the kind of people we need to help deliver our vision as well as
improving team spirit, job satisfaction and motivation for existing post holders

Some staff turnover, where individuals are moving on to develop their aspirations, is to
be welcomed. It creates further opportunities, this strategy ensures that succession
planning is in place and encourages flexible retirement.
Measure: These will be measured through the use of staff survey, staff turnover and
sickness absence statistics.
2. Investing in our people – Providing tools and resources to do the job
Learning and Development
We must ensure that learning opportunities are equitable and linked to business and
individual need, with the focus remaining on delivering excellent customer service and
improving organisational performance.
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
Create a continuous learning culture, where individuals and teams embrace the
principles of learning within their daily work, take responsibility for their own personal
and professional development and share their learning with others.

Evaluate learning effectively to assess the impact and demonstrate value for money.

Develop new approaches to learning with a greater emphasis on flexibility, use of new
technology and outcomes.

Further improve competency frameworks to enhance performance and equip people to
fulfil current responsibilities, and enable them to adapt to future change.

Improve leadership and management capability.

Produce an annual training plan for the organisation and measure its effectiveness.

Continue to promote and support apprenticeships and other training opportunities for
young people.

Provide a systematic and equitable process for accessing learning and development
opportunities which fulfil organisational and individual potential, maximise individual
capacity and promote a continual learning culture.
Measure: These will be measured through the use of staff survey, cost effectiveness and
efficiency of the organisation, training evaluation feedback and IIP Accreditation.
Change Management and Continuous Improvement
We must ensure that change is embraced and ongoing improvement is seen as the
minimum standard of performance.

Ensure managers have the right skills to manage change.

Embed a continuous improvement culture throughout the organisation.

Maintain Investor in People Gold standard and Champion status.

Regularly review priorities to ensure that they remain in line with the business plan, the
vision and staff needs.

Embrace technology to ensure that efficiency in working practices are maximised.
Measure: These will be measured through the use of Staff Survey, Training Evaluation
Feedback and IIP Accreditation.
3. Investing in our people – Engaged employees
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Communication and Consultation
We must ensure that we actively engage staff and residents in changes to policy, using staff
and resident voice to influence decisions, and communicate relevant decisions and change
effectively and appropriately to staff.

Encourage team working and openness in two way communication and consultation
with staff.

Encourage involvement and participation of staff and individually in teams through focus
groups and action learning sets.

Measure and feedback the value improvement to assist in increasing motivation and
promote a positive working environment through engagement.

Work in partnership with managers and staff to develop and review HR policy and
procedures to ensure clear and current direction and guidance available.

Continue to develop and implement Thrive, to ensure that we develop and deliver
consistent communication within Teign Housing that supports high quality service
delivery.

Explain the reasons for management decisions, particularly where they may differ with
residents and staff feedback.
Measure: These will be measured against our KPIs and through targets set for the
achievement of the Thrive outcomes and staff survey.
Human Resources
We must ensure that we have appropriate staff resources to provide a cost effective and
excellent service to our customers and maximise the capability and competence of this
resource.

Regularly evaluate different ways of working to improve customer satisfaction, for
example, remote working with IT support. This will increase flexibility and improve the
quality and satisfaction of the service.

Use partnership and collaborative working where this provides a better or more cost
effective service.

Build the capacity of residents to become more involved in our business through
initiatives, such as mystery shopping, therefore increasing the capability of our
workforce.

Maintain and continue to develop a positive employee relations climate.
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Measure: These will be measured through the use of staff survey, turnover and sickness
absence statistics.
4. Investing in our people – People and customers
Equality and Diversity
We must ensure that people have equal access to HR services and provisions (recruitment,
learning and development, consultation, reward and wellbeing) as well as creating a culture
where diversity is recognised and valued, subsequently benefiting the service that we can
deliver.

To continuously raise staff and board member awareness and understanding of equality
and diversity in order to embed the principles of equality across the organisation.

Set targets to ensure that Teign Housing reflects the communities in which it works and
is tackling areas of under representation and social exclusion.

Produce robust equalities plans which ensure fairness of treatment in all parts of the
business.

Embed equality, diversity in the organisational culture and demonstrate the business
benefit of doing this.

Carry out equality impact assessments on both existing and new policies, procedures
and services to ensure that any adverse impact is addressed and legislative
compliance.

Ensure that the values and the principles of equality and diversity, continuous
improvement and value for money are embedded into the planning and delivery of HR
services.
Measure: These will be measured through Equality KPIs. These include monitoring the
numbers attending training sessions and monitoring the diversity of the organisation. Value
for money will be measured through the balanced scorecard.
Health and Safety and Wellbeing
We must ensure that staff are safe at work and well provided for, to comply with legislation
and contribute to a satisfactory and comfortable working environment, through:

Maintain a balanced health and safety culture.
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Support staff and effectively manage work related risks.

Monitor and report on arrangements for safety, welfare and health.

Use of the lone worker system for monitoring lone workers.
Measure: These will be measured and monitored by the Health and Safety Committee.
Performance Management
We must ensure that we develop a performance management culture with customer service
being a priority, through:

Establish a performance culture and initiate processes which will ensure that
successes are acknowledged and recognised and shortfalls are addressed quickly and
effectively, through appraisal, one to ones, recognition, discipline where appropriate
performance improvement and meet legal requirements.

Ensure that Teign Housing's competencies become part of everyday performance
management.

Ensure we have effective absence management processes.

Provide an HR service that contributes to organisational success and adds value,
capable of responding quickly and efficiently to changes across the business, with an
emphasis on customer service, performance management and adhering to changing
legislation.

Monitor and maintain our current employee satisfaction which was identified in our
recent staff survey.
Measure: These will be measured by a HR Strategy Review.
Resources and Risk
The Human Resources Strategy will be funded from our existing budgets approved by the
board. This supports our strategic aim of ensuring value and investment.
The Human Resources team compromises of 1 full time equivalent staff member, 0.60 full
time equivalent staff member and a Director of Services who oversees the function.
The following risks have been identified that influence this Human Resources Strategy:
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
Human Resources policies and procedures are not reflective of best practice, are
missing or are outdated.

Breach of Health and Safety legislation resulting in injury to staff, resident or public.

Low staff morale could adversely affect service quality.

Shortage of staff results in service standards not being met.

Staff data is inaccurate, resulting in incorrect business decision being taken.

Training is not effective and does not increase skills or quality or services.

Staff groups do not effectively communicate and consult.

Unnecessary bureaucracy can impede efficiency and effectiveness.
Strategy Review
This strategy will be formally reviewed in line with the corporate business plan, as part of the
business plan objectives on a 3 yearly rotation and will be subject to change to meet
developing needs during this period.
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