Council with ageing workforce seeks more younger employees

Almost half of South Staffordshire Council’s workforce of 311 employees was aged 46 or over as of March 31 2019. At the same time just 45 staff members – less than 15 per cent – were aged 25 or under.

Council services with at least 50 per cent of teams aged 46+ included customer services, leisure and facilities, revenues and street cleansing. In contrast Cheslyn Hay Leisure Centre had the highest proportion of younger workers – 12.5 per cent were aged 16-18, a report presented to this month’s Standards and Resources Committee revealed.

Work is taking place to improve employment rates of younger people however.

Wendy Bridgwater, corporate support manager for human resources, said: “We have an ageing workforce – very similar to the position last year. We have a higher proportion of older staff members who are in the 36-45, 46-55 and 56+ age brackets.

“We have a low proportion of workers aged 35 or under and it is particularly prominent in the under 25. We have just seven employees aged 16-18 – not surprisingly that is one of our key priorities.

“In 2018/19 we met our apprentice target and we want to build on that. The Apprentice Levy has been used to fund training qualifications for new employees and career development.”

The council employed or enrolled eight employees on an Apprentice Levy qualification/training programme in 2018/19 and six were aged 16-35.

The report added: “In addition, service team workforce plans are actively considering the employment of an apprentice. Many of these service teams are those that have more than 50 per cent of their workforce in the higher age categories.”

The workforce report also revealed that eight employees had disclosed that they had a disability – an increase of one compared to the previous year. But 10 employees had chosen not to declare their disability status – and this issue is set to be reviewed in the council’s equality and health and wellbeing groups in a bid to find ways to improve disclosure rates.

Ms Bridgwater said: “One of the things we are looking at is relating to mental health and stress. We have to make sure we continue to work hard at taking away the stigma so people are comfortable about raising it in work.

“It’s important we give managers training and support so they have the knowledge to have these sorts of conversations.

“Employees have got to be medically fit because we have to keep them safe but the fact is very commonly the other things that come up that may be a disability often don’t impact on them doing a job. If there is a health and safety issue we have to look at it for duty of care reasons, but often it’s about putting adjustments in and asking ‘how can we support you?’