Goal 5
We invest in our people to grow our capabilities and capacities and respond to change in a supportive and empowering way.
Our people are our most valuable resource. A resilient, highly engaged and skilled workforce is at the centre of delivering our success.
By 2030 we seek to systematically develop skills, ensuring sufficient capacity and foster a supportive culture, empowering employees to adapt to change - supported by strong leadership, clear measurement and continuous improvement.
We will focus on five main themes to achieve this:
- People 1: Build people capability.
- People 2: Strengthen organisational capacity.
- People 3: Create a supportive, enabling culture.
- People 4: Empower people to respond to change.
- People 5: Strengthen leadership and management.
People 1
Build people capability.
We want to develop the skills and knowledge needed now and for the future. This is important for ensuring we build resilience and flexibility into our services through the skills of our workforce. This is also vital to the personal and professional development of each and every member of our team.
We will enhance how we deliver targeted learning and development programmes, supported by personal development plans for all staff members, to introduce and support more opportunities for diversity of roles and responsibilities and progression.
We will invest in expanding coaching, mentoring and leadership development, committing time for staff to focus on a range of development and learning opportunities, utilising both digital and face to face methods. We will strengthen operational and role specific training by introducing feedback loops to continuously improve the impact of learning and development tools.
By 2030, we seek to have delivered a comprehensive and clear suite of learning and development tools focused not only on our tasks, but that allow all our people to develop and grow as civil servants.
People 2
Strengthen organisational capacity.
We continue to evolve our ways of working, changing and improving our systems and processes, therefore we must ensure we have the right people, in the right roles, at the right time.
As some areas increasingly harness the benefits of technology and innovation, our roles and the composition of our teams will too evolve. By 2030 we seek to have re-configured our delivery model, focusing more of our people on more qualitative duties. We will create new structures to support both short and longer-term workforce planning that demonstrate our path towards our future delivery model.
Our approach will build an increasingly flexible, multi-skilled workforce capable of delivering across multiple existing and emerging services, which will be critical to successfully aligning with wider Scottish Government goals and the shared vision for a sustainable, high-quality, cost-effective public service.
People 3
Create a supportive, enabling culture.
We will promote wellbeing, inclusion, diversity and a positive employee experience. As an increasingly inclusive and diverse organisation, we can grow our people and develop our culture through wider insights, lived experience and perspectives.
We want DS to be a great place to work, one that fosters an inclusive and psychologically safe environment.
To achieve this, we will implement a revised and comprehensive people strategy. By co-designing with our staff and considering needs and culture from a range of perspectives we seek to foster a culture for our people that is set by our people.
This will include:
- creating new opportunities for feedback, insight and ideas
- growing our people networks and representative groups and committees
- wellbeing and mental health support
- hybrid and agile working
- seek new opportunities to be more diverse and inclusive
People 4
Empower people to respond to change.
We will equip our staff and leaders to adapt to the results of change and innovate confidently.
As our organisation continues to mature our change capabilities, we seek to further develop and invest in change leadership, management and delivery capabilities.
We want to increase decision-making autonomy and capacity at all levels, building personal and professional ownership of both the changes we make and the benefits we realise.
By 2030 we want to realise an environment where innovation and continuous improvement is encouraged and active at all levels of the organisation.
People 5
Strengthen leadership and management.
Clear and consistent leadership and management is key to a successful, people-focused organisation.
We will invest in our leaders and our managers capabilities and capacity. We will ensure all of our leaders and managers are equipped to support, develop and empower their teams.
We will redefine our expectations of our leaders and our managers. Experience and tenure varies, but terms and conditions of our workforce does not. Therefore, we must, through a comprehensive programme of leadership and management development initiatives, ensure the fundamentals are applied fairly and with parity, but we should also balance this with a developmental approach to recognise that both experience and personal circumstance vary.
By 2030, we seek to have clear and consistent leadership and management development programmes and associated guidance and support systems.
We will have clear management objectives with people development outcomes which include clear expectations of inclusivity.
By 2030, we want to demonstrably live our values, including that we will be inclusive and kind. Our people strategy and the objectives sets will be central to achieving this.