Scotland’s councils have been invited to get involved with a “groundbreaking” talent management research programme, as SPDS partners with NEREO (the body representing the 12 local authorities in the North East of England).

David Leask, consultant at NEREO, told delegates at the SPDS Annual Conference about NEREO’s National Talent Management Research Programme, which aims to enhance talent management strategies within councils across the UK, helping local authorities to address critical workforce challenges like an ageing workforce, recruitment issues and skills gaps.

Working with the University of Sunderland, the research will identify challenges and progress made, propose recommendations to enhance talent management strategies within local government and provide tools and resources to help.

In Scotland, the research project will be led by the SPDS with NEREO’s support. The aim is to explore and analyse talent management approaches within Scottish local authorities, with the results helping all Scottish councils improve their approach to recruitment, retention and talent management.

The research programme aligns closely with Scotland’s Local Government Workforce Report 2024 in a number of ways, such as through focusing on long-term solutions, promoting local government as a career of choice, and promoting the importance of diversity and inclusion and collaboration across the sector.

“We’re all local government: we need to work together, to collaborate,” said Leask. “We need to sell local government as a career of choice. We’re all struggling, so we need to do this together. We need as many councils involved in this as possible.”

 ‘Make a Difference’ recruitment campaign success

In his presentation, Leask also revealed the impressive results and learnings of the ‘Make a Difference’ local government recruitment campaign programme, launched in the North East of England earlier this year. The campaign focused on attracting more young people (aged 20 to 29) into a career in local government.

“Councils are not visible to younger generations in the same way they are to [older] people, so it’s about turning this around and making it look like an attractive, fashionable and interesting role,” Leask said. Focus groups found people were primarily motivated by the desire for better opportunities, more responsibility and improved working conditions.

This target market research led to the creation of the ‘Make a Difference: Work for your local council’ campaign, with councils being given the tools to create their own advertising in alignment with a common brand and theme. Adverts appeared across multiple media platforms including on billboards, radios and social media.

“The campaign highlighted the infinite variety of roles and exciting opportunities available in a career in local government, particularly for young jobseekers, and promoted the difference people can make,” said Leask. “It pushed councils as an employer of choice and has rewritten the public perception of local authorities. It also complemented local authorities’ own recruitment activities.”

In the pilot campaign across the North East of England, the campaign achieved more than 17m impressions across all channels. Diversity of career opportunities and prospects proved to be the most effective and impactful messaging. The campaign led to an increase in applications to North East jobs and improved how people felt about and perceived their local council. For example, people who had seen the campaign were more likely to agree that their local council had the power to make things happen, was forward-thinking and would be a diverse and dynamic place to work.

As a result of the pilot’s success, the UK government funded a national rollout of the campaign across England, with a toolkit containing brand guidelines and assets available to local authorities. The campaign also contains guidance on writing impactful social media posts and offers innovation masterclasses on writing effective job adverts and other topics.

“Everything that goes out in published form, whether that be on a web page, a magazine, a social media post, a video, a letter or a flyer is giving the world a view of your organisation,” said Leask. “It’s significantly easier to get someone to want to work for you if they’re already invested in what you’re telling them. Selling a role just does not just start with the advert, it starts with everything that you put out in the world.”

Other key tips included being able to grab someone’s attention in eight seconds, understanding how young people engage with social media (for example watching TikTok videos with subtitles), making the applicant feel important and keeping text concise and to the point.

“It’s about how we continue to promote ourselves,” Leask said. “How can we promote local careers in new and interesting ways, enhance employer branding and develop clear career pathways? It’s about attracting those younger generations and building robust pipelines for future talent and working together collaboratively to deal with the talent dilemma.”

David Leask with SPDS Vice President, Fiona Whittaker

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Blog by Katie Jacobs, an award-winning freelance journalist, writer and editor, who specialises in writing about the world of work. She was previously Editor of HR Magazine and Senior Stakeholder Lead at the CIPD.