Ms Rosarii Mannion:

I thank the Senator. Recruitment and retention remain an ongoing challenge. We have a people strategy with eight strategic objectives and recruitment and retention are the key priorities there. In terms of recruitment, we know the supply is inadequate so we have done everything possible, as I said earlier, to become self-sufficient with our training college bursary sponsorship. In addition to that we create the conditions whereby staff want to stay in the agency. There are some things within our control and some without our control. Pay and conditions are external to our control, so we are very focused on creating an environment that is as good as it possibly can be. We provide on-site counselling, employee assistance programmes, health and well-being, coaching, mentoring and a really good induction programme, You Start.

If we think that people are getting into difficulty or they are challenged we try to get in early. We look at redeployment and rotations. We are just trying to be as proactive as we possibly can be. Every year we undertake an employee survey. Despite the sometimes negative publicity that we get, the experience of our employees, as reported by themselves, is very positive. Employees were given the option to describe in narrative terms their experience of the environment. The top three that came out from the employees themselves – from 30,000 descriptors – is that we are a learning and developing agency; we are friendly; we are supportive and; the environments are respectful, so we are doing everything we can there both in terms of recruitment and retention. We undertake exit interviews to hear from staff when they are leaving to see what we can learn and if there are things we could have done better. We find the top three themes coming through on exits are different career opportunities, the emotional impact of the work and opportunities to travel.

While our retention figures are improving all the time, they are slower than we would like. It is a very challenged market. There are plenty of opportunities out there but we are pleased that we are moving in a positive trajectory.