People strategy

Introduction from our Chief Executive

Our focus is to provide quality services for our communities, enabling the county to be a great place to live, work, support families and visit.

To ensure we maintain that high standard and build on this for the future, we must have a working environment that encourages our colleagues to thrive and perform at their best – and to be confident to embrace change.

Our people strategy supports our workforce to be motivated, healthy, and values-driven, and is integral to the delivery of our corporate plan – the vision and ambitions for Lincolnshire.

Fundamentally to achieve this, over the last three years of this strategy, we have steadily made changes in our culture to foster a working environment that:

  • supports individuals, teams to feel empowered and be responsible
  • improve services through distributed leadership and collaboration
  • ensures that everyone owns, understands, and embodies the council's new values and behaviours (2024)
  • we are supportive, kind, and compassionate in our approach
  • supports staff engagement, hybrid and smarter working
  • we are adaptable and can work in partnership with our stakeholders, supporting changes within Greater Lincolnshire, such as devolution (2024 to 25)
  • enables a work life that is eco-conscious

Our people strategy sets out how we will recruit, retain, and develop skilled and talented individuals from inside and outside of Lincolnshire and from diverse backgrounds, to deliver quality services.

This strategy shows how we will build on good foundations to create a more progressive and forward-thinking council that supports our ambition of being a ‘good employer’.

Debbie Barnes OBE
Chief Executive

Our people strategy will focus on nine areas. These areas of focus are interconnected and underpinned by an annual plan. Our vision for 2025 is a workforce that demonstrates the following:

Culture, leadership and values

  • We will uphold a new values-based culture and lead through positive behaviours; holding people to account.
  • We will ensure that council talent is nurtured and managed through effective programmes to ensure we have the right leaders.
  • We will trust our employees, creating conditions for them to thrive in their working environments.

Attracting and retaining talent

  • We will ensure we attract the right talent where values and behaviours are as important as competency.
  • We will support our leaders to ensure they have the right tools to improve recruitment and retention, including tailored employment offers.
  • We will ensure our HR processes will be efficient, effective and meet safer recruitment standards.
  • For the benefit of our communities, we will increase our numbers and investment in:
    • apprenticeships (or equivalent)
    • work placements
    • early career initiatives

Equality, diversity and inclusion

  • We will have a comprehensive understanding of the needs and expectations of the people who work in the council through:
    • engagement
    • communication
    • support
    • appropriate interventions, including action against discrimination
  • We will ensure that all our people:
    • have the right opportunities to develop and progress
    • understand the benefits of diversity and these are realised across the organisation
  • Our workforce will be reflective of the working-age population we serve.

Engagement and communication

  • We will ensure that our people and trade unions are involved in shaping council developments and transformation.  They will receive regular communication on performance and activities.

Workforce transformation and innovation

  • We will implement annual workforce planning that meets the needs of the council.
  • We will identify opportunities for the implementation of new models of service delivery.
  • We will embrace digital solutions that:
    • provide information that is meaningful and contemporary
    • facilitate different ways of working

Health and well-being

  • We will provide supportive and preventive health interventions to improve employee work outcomes.
  • We will improve processes for managing our employees' health to ensure we are more responsive.

People management

  • We will have a supportive and restorative approach to performance management; learning lessons and avoiding blame. We take strong action against poor practices that harm service users, customers, partner organisations and colleagues.

Learning and development

  • We will target timely, valued learning and development at the right people.  We will ensure better systems and an annual organisational training needs analysis.

Reward and recognition

  • We will provide an improved council offer through new flexible employee benefits.
  • Through transparent processes, we will ensure leaders and their employees receive recognition for good performance.

The strategy has been developed with input from a range of stakeholders and considers:

  • our corporate ambitions
  • operational requirements
  • internal and external factors
  • market forces

A detailed people strategy delivery plan sits alongside this strategy.  It sets out our priorities, milestones and success measures.

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