Creating better work & working lives for veterinary workers in Yorkshire
Developing career pathways & better employee benefits We have developed a career pathway for veterinary professionals with a clear articulation of pay scales
Burnout and the recruitment and retention of skilled staff are challenges that many organisations are facing this year. Keen to overcome these obstacles, VetPartners - which employees over 7,000 staff - is on a mission to ensure its veterinary practices are the best places to work by investing in its people. Rob Williams, Head of Talent at VetPartners in York tells us more about how HR is helping to improve the organisation’s employee value proposition to attract and retain top talent.
at VetPartners are female and approximately 70% of veterinary surgeons under the age of 45 are women. This is part of a bigger piece of work aimed at improving VetPartners employee value proposition, based on colleague feedback, and working to deliver flexible and family-friendly working policies.
as there is poor visibility of this for employees across the profession. We’ve also spent a lot of time developing more generous benefits for all staff, particularly with respect to CPD allowances and annual leave.
Supporting recruitment, flexible working & wellbeing
Equality and ‘fairness’ Due to the nature of our business, only a relatively small proportion of employees can work from home (5-6%). But we have a very open, collaborative, and supportive approach to managing teams and as long as work is completed, we don’t spend lots of time checking what people are doing or make judgements about who is, or isn’t, physically present. We have a proud track-record of recognising and developing talent and promotion from within; two of our senior operations team have been promoted recently, both from veterinary nurse backgrounds and both are working remotely.
There is a worldwide shortage of veterinary surgeons including in the UK. For many years the UK has relied on overseas vets to meet workforce needs. But Brexit and Covid have both dramatically reduced vet immigration to the UK. To help with the recruitment of vets, we have restructured the recruitment team with a focus on supporting practices to recruit directly through their networks. We have a Tier 2 Visa Sponsorship Licence to help recruit overseas vets too. We have also signed up with Working Families to improve our flexible working and family-friendly work policy and practice as a means of improving recruitment and employee relations. Furthermore, HR have undertaken mental health first aid training to support leadership teams more effectively with supporting colleagues with stress and anxiety.
Rob Williams, Head of Talent at VetPartners in York
Enhancing maternity pay VetPartners introduced enhanced maternity pay (8 weeks at 100% pay and 12 weeks at 50% pay) in June 2021. Traditionally in veterinary employment only statutory maternity pay was on offer. Enhancing maternity pay for our colleagues is a positive development as 85% of our 7,200 colleagues
Learn how to implement various employee benefits and a wider reward strategy here
REGIONAL INSIGHTS
Spring 2022
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