SEE has been running HR Surgery Zoom Sessions for our Member Councils since April. Each one hour session gives HR professionals the opportunity to raise any questions that they may need the answer to.

Michelle, our Employment Relations Consultant, is on hand to provide advice on the legal and best practice approach, feed in information being discussed at National level and on top of that other councils share their own experiences and approaches. The numbers attending have increased steadily and the feedback from those attending has been really positive.

In these unprecedented times, while we’re all trying to find our way in a very different world, these surgery sessions have enabled us to discuss the pressing issues that councils are facing up and down the country. Early sessions focused on finding our way through the Furlough Leave provisions and managing those who couldn’t work from home.

In May we held a dedicated session on the ‘Reset’ and planning for a return to work. Recently we have been discussing Risk Assessments including specific discussion on the impact of COVID-19 on the BAME community, managing the Test, Track and Trace implications on the workforce both from the perspective of helping administer the scheme and where employees are advised to isolate, how to manage the 14 day quarantine requirements where employees travel abroad and managing Recruitment, Disciplinary and Grievances remotely.

But not all questions are COVID-19 related. We’ve discussed councils’ approaches to the Black Lives Matter campaign and the pay negotiations.

Currently, we are running fortnightly sessions for our Full Membership Councils’ HR teams, Full Membership Council’s Education HR teams, our Associate Member Councils’ key contacts and we are in the process of setting up a similar session for our Full Member Councils’ H&S Teams.