Solving Birmingham City Council’s public health staff shortage

Government

“We always get what we want in the timeframe that we want… The quality of people is great. The people that we generally recruit have to be UKPHR or GMC registered, and Vivid does all of those checks for us. So it makes it much quicker.”*

The Candidate

Birmingham City Council is one of the largest district authorities in the UK, responsible for over a million people. As such, it requires a significant number of staff to keep everything working as intended, employing over 12,000 people in total. Tom Harwood is one of Birmingham City Council’s Heads of Office, responsible for recruiting people to his department, and he talked to us about the challenges that Vivid helped him out with.

The Requirement

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, Birmingham City Council was faced with an increased need for public health workers to deal with the impact of the coronavirus. However, the pandemic had also significantly reduced the amount of available talent due to illness and workers leaving the sector out of concern. With COVID both increasing demand and reducing the supply of essential candidates, Tom contacted Vivid Resourcing to see if we could help with his staffing needs.

The Challenge

Tom was in need of agency workers who could fill the council’s demand in the short term, for between three and six months. The first challenge came once again from COVID-19. Not only had the available talent pool shrunk due to the pandemic, but the candidates who were still part of the job market were in much higher demand, so competition was fierce.

In addition, the candidates needed to have specific public health qualifications in order to do the job effectively. At higher levels, all candidates would have to be registered with either the General Medical Council (GMC) or the UK Public Health Register (UKPHR), which further narrowed the talent pool.

*Tom Harwood – Head of Office at Birmingham City Council

Our approach

The Solution

Tom was very confident that Louis – his point of contact at Vivid – would be up to the task. The two had worked together many times before, and Tom knew he could provide Louis with a brief and Louis would fill it to the best possible level.

This turned out to be the case with this round of hires for Birmingham City Council. Louis found talent that matched up with Tom’s needs, and they were hired quickly and efficiently. Tom has continued to use Vivid since, due in a large part to Louis’ ability to fulfil whatever brief Birmingham City Council needs.

The Results

Tom has found that Louis and Vivid have always been able to get him what he wants in the timeframe he needs. Birmingham City Council works quickly, with candidates starting work less than a week after their interview, and Vivid have always been able to enable this. Tom has also been impressed with the quality of hires, and the fact that all of the relevant checks for things like GMC registration are taken care of.

The Partnership

Tom Harwood, Head of Office

“It’s very difficult because we’re so niche in what we require and what we need. It’s not as if we are an admin team and, and they’re finding us extra admin staff as we need them; it’s a complex recruitment process. We work really quickly and Louis works quickly with us.”

“We always get what we want in the timeframe that we want… The quality of people is great. The people that we generally recruit have to be UKPHR or GMC registered, and Vivid does all of those checks for us. So it makes it much quicker.”

Meet the team