How Buckinghamshire Council supports its middle leaders in adult social care

Developing middle leaders in Buckinghamshire Council

Buckinghamshire Council colleagues share how the council supports its middle leaders and describe the strengths and challenges of providing a range of appropriate and user-friendly learning resources.

Tracy Mcfall is the Human Resources Business Partner for Buckinghamshire Council. We also spoke with Jason Greasley who is the Head of Coaching and Leadership Transformation at the Buckinghamshire Health and Social Care Academy.

Tracy explained that there had been a significant gap in supporting the learning and development needs of middle leaders. The council started work to identify the problem and propose a range of recommendations to address it.

It was felt that there were areas that required upskilling, including:

• absence management
• actively displaying and embedding best practice
• performance management
• people management.

As a result, two significant developments took place. A ‘Managers Essential’ programme was developed to set out expectations for all leaders and describe role model behaviours. The ambition is that this programme will become a mandatory requirement for all managers in the council.

Moving on from the essential programme, many managers have been interested in completing the Peak 3 Senior Leaders Programme. This provides an opportunity to link with colleagues across health, emergency services and social care, and assists managers in developing knowledge and skills to deliver compassionate, transformational and inclusive leadership. There is no threshold criteria for the programme. The ambition is that all managers can attend, and it starts with the individual's continual professional development plan. Aspiring managers have also been considered, but there is a long waiting list, and a triage system is in place to ensure all spaces are filled.

The memorandum of co-operation and joint training agreed through the academy and Integrated Care Board has allowed for this work to develop. There is a coaching ethos, and you do not need to be a manager to receive the support of a coach.

Jason told us about the 'Your 5 Steps to Success development programme'. Designed to support career development, it is about providing the right training at the right time. It seeks to allow leaders to flourish in their existing role and supports growth into the next. The programme adopts a strength-based approach with a focus on wellbeing and coaching as an essential tool to development and future support. These are the five steps:

• Local Inductions: This step is not a facilitated session. It gives guidance and supporting materials to provide a good induction to people joining a team. It covers action to take before an employee arrives, making an induction plan, providing what employees need, and being culturally aware.
• Leading self: This step supports teams to be the best they can be by way of a two-day interactive programme to help participants be the best version of themselves. It covers collaboration across systems, managing your own time and resources, understanding your stressors and motivation, and coaching.
• Introduction to line management: This step focuses on leading others. This two-day module has been designed to support those already leading others, and to prepare those that will do so in the future.
• Leading teams: This step focuses on team leadership and the skills required to successfully manage and guide a team of employees.
• Senior leaders programme: This step is currently only available to health and social care, through the Peak 3 programme, delivered in partnership with Buckinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust. Work is underway to further develop the programme with a focus on adult social care.

We pass on our thanks to Tracy and Jason for taking the time to share the approach Buckinghamshire Council and the Health and Social Care Academy takes to developing middle leaders.