HR and Recruitment, Professional Standards, and Welfare

As the lead in force client manager my primary goal is to align resourcing efforts with the strategic workforce plans. By implementing effective strategies, plans and delivery mechanisms within the Resourcing and Workforce Planning function I ensure Dorset Police and Devon & Cornwall Police possess the capabilities to meet their strategic objectives.

For clarity I oversee recruitment for police staff, police officers, specials and volunteers, as well as the promotions for police officers and the workforce planning function.

What I enjoy most is leading a team of 55 people to deliver the forces objectives by developing themselves to be the best version of themselves.

I started with Dorset Police by fluke as I moved to the area and needed a job. That was 20 years ago. I have now been in the public sector for 20 years specialising in human resources.

My proudest moment was in ensuring the delivery of the national uplift programme for two forces, whilst also bringing in substantial process improvements.

I am responsible for leading the provision of strategic workforce planning across West Mercia. This includes (but is not limited to) how we attract and retain an effective workforce, how we recognise and manage talent and how we ensure our future skills requirements are met.

Strategic workforce planning is still developing in West Mercia Police and I find that really exciting. I lead an amazing team who are as excited as I am about the difference we can make. As a team, we are ambitious and still want to deliver so much more but when I look back on the two years I have been in post, I am truly proud to see what we have achieved. I really enjoy generating information and analysing it and then ultimately seeing it develop into a set of actions and deliverables that positively contributes to how West Mercia protect people from harm.

My way into this role was purely by accident! My background was very much in the operational HR field - I joined as an HR Officer, was promoted to a HR Business Partner before becoming the Senior Manager for Operational HR. If I am honest, I had not considered a career in the talent and resourcing field until a colleague left the role and I was asked to consider a sideways move to enhance and build on our vision for talent and resourcing.

This was a big decision for me as my background and comfort zone had always been in operational HR. I challenged myself to think broader and to seize the opportunity as I knew it would be a great experience and one which would 'round' my experience and skill set in the people field. After some deliberation, I took the leap and am so glad I did. I have a fantastic team who work really hard and have achieved a great deal in a two-year period.

My most proud moment was being nominated as Police Staff Member of the Year in 2023. There were so many amazing people nominated and so I was even more proud (and shocked) to have been chosen as the winner.

After retiring as member of police staff (previously retired as officer) I wanted to continue assisting colleagues with highlighting and supporting with disabilities or conditions. I therefore returned as a volunteer and continued in roles within both West Midlands Police Staff network and national Disabled Police Association. I am a executive committee member of the WMP EnAble Disability and Carers network and WMP ND network (recently created and working jointly with EnAble). I am currently national Secretary of DPA.

I enjoy being able to signpost and advise colleagues around both practical matters of day to day living with a disability or condition and being able to signpost them to obtain appropriate assistance and adjustments.

I help to advise forces in implementing appropriate adjustments and practices. passing on learned experience from myself and colleagues, learning from colleagues and making policing a fairer equitable and diverse community.

I was diagnosed with diabetes (T2) after also having surgery for worn out knee joints. I became aware of a fledgling Disability and Carers Network within WMP and joined. Since then I have gone on to be member of the executive committee, serving as secretary for a number of years. This led me to being part of the now defunct national Police Diabetes Association and also joining the Disabled Police association as WMP SPOC.

I have proud moments that stand out to me in my career:.

• Firstly, to be honoured by the Late HM Queen Elizabeth II with a British Empire Medal for services to policing regarding my work within disability.
• Second to see my suggestion of a national Reasonable Adjustments Policy across UK policing being fulfilled via the College of Policing guidance issued. (Ongoing)

I help to run leadership training for our leaders within Surrey Police; this includes officers and staff. It is a wide role, but I also look after projects where I am able to support those in the organisation that need guidance or advice- this includes compliance, coaching, mentoring, assurance and educational training.

I am able to support those within the organisation on a wide network of things - my varied background allows me to work within a coaching, assessor, management, leadership, mentoring, educational or assurance role, all relevant to those I am helping, and I believe my experience helps me to do this.

I was an external applicant from the organisation and interviewed for the role. I was training some of the current police staff in assessor skills, when I was asked to interview for the role. Once the application and interview were complete, I started my role in Surrey and now mainly support Sussex Police.

I have been able to influence change and support thought for varying things during my role. I have been able to look at and support the educational requirements of the organisations, the assurance processes that needed some rigour, as well as training the education and training elements for trainers both new and current.

My current role involves overseeing the Emergency Contact Handling Apprenticeship Scheme, which is required by all new Initial Contact Officers joining West Yorkshire Police as call handlers.

My responsibilities involve delivering a presentation to each new group to inform them of the apprenticeship scheme and what this involves, regularly monitoring completion of their records of learning, or learning logs and delivering feedback, and checking their progress with a portfolio of evidence which needs to be submitted. I also need to update internal policies where necessary and enrol apprentices to complete English and maths work, as these qualifications are required for the apprenticeship.

I also regularly liaise with external organisations such as Functional Skills UK or Skills for Justice and attend meetings to represent the force and keep team members up to date. I can also deliver progress review meetings with each apprentice and their supervisor and prepare each apprentice to complete their apprenticeship via an external assessor. A large part of my role involves overseeing each group throughout training, and so I can also be required to assist with training sessions.

I enjoy making things easier for each new group of apprentices, as they are joining West Yorkshire Police to carry out an exceptionally demanding role as call handlers. The apprenticeship can have its own stresses, and I enjoy assisting each employee to concentrate on delivering an excellent service to the public.

After I joined West Yorkshire Police in September 2014 as a call handler, I become involved as a mentor and assisting the development of new employees. This sparked an interest in the training roles, as I enjoyed delivering feedback and working 1-1 with an employee to assist their development. I had mainly worked in call handling roles throughout my career and saw the role of an Apprenticeship Coach as a logical progression to work in a training environment.

I am proud of each apprentice as they complete the apprenticeship successfully, as throughout each individual's progress I identify with their successes and challenges. So getting notified when they have achieved this is a real boost for me. In addition, I have overseen numerous changes within the department, such as moving away from a large amount of written work to using more online based learning. This needed a number of new eLearning courses to be written, which I enjoyed researching and thinking about how these would be relevant for employees. Should I move on from this role, I will be happy knowing that these will remain to assist future employees.

In my current role as an Organisational Development Officer I work in the Learning and Professional Development Department to develop and promote a learning culture within Surrey Police and Sussex Police. Specifically, I support all officers, staff, supervisors and line managers to embrace on-the-job learning and identify and fill capability gaps.

I undertake training needs analysis and evaluations on performance to support the development of staff. I am responsible for designing and project managing new learning programs for all levels of the organisation. This includes our leadership development pathway for leaders at all levels of the organisation as well as other ad-hoc training to meet the needs of individuals across the organisation.

I also facilitate train-the-trainer courses for new products and new trainers for Surrey and Sussex Police. I am also a trained assessor and carry out assessments of our certified training packages.

I just absolutely love helping people and giving people the tools that will help them do better in their role, having a knock-on impact to their confidence and self-esteem. Being able to influence the organisation to make positive changes that have a huge impact on everyone for the better is a huge factor for me loving my role. I also just love training!

It all started from being a ski instructor and needing to get a job that was full time rather than just when it snowed! I joined the police in 2017 in criminal justice and quickly got involved in training new colleagues to the team. I then used the experiences I gained there to crowbar my way back into delivering training where I became a Technical Trainer delivering Police National Computer and Niche training. After that role I then moved into the role I am in now to deliver different aspects of training and facilitation.

I am most proud of the developments I have made to our interview training particularly our interviewee practice course which I designed to help fill the gaps people were experiencing in having no way of practising interview questions. This course has really helped people, and I have been in contact with a few people who have completed that course and then have gone on to achieve the role or promotion they were after which has given me a huge sense of achievement.