Priority three

People and culture - learning and development

As an inclusive organisation, we want to create a learning culture which provides consistency and equality of opportunity to allow everyone to achieve their full potential. We will be innovative and creative in offering opportunities and career pathways for people to develop and to ensure they have the right skills.

A learning culture embeds learning into everything we do, whether at an individual, team or 
organisational level. This requires strong leaders to follow a strategic learning model and to 
support employees towards a shared vision and positive change through open dialogue and reflection.

Over the last three years, we have been evolving how we develop our future leaders. The key part of this change has been to go from reactive development and promotion processes to a pre-emptive one, informed by a well-structured workforce planning foundation. We have seen the introduction of development pools for future crew and station managers, where individuals have access to leadership training, qualifications and a host of different apprenticeship 
opportunities. Our corporate colleagues also have access to the same level of leadership development.

Apprenticeships

In May 2024, we won the Large Apprenticeship Employer of the Year Award alongside Bridgwater and Taunton College. The award recognised how we demonstrated a proactive commitment to the professional development of our personnel through our operational firefighter and operational manager apprenticeships.

Recognising the significance of higher education, we actively support our staff taking on advanced degrees and additional certification, relevant to their respective fields.

We will continue to work with colleges and other training providers to deliver tailored apprenticeships to all our employees, to ensure the best fit for individuals, and our organisation, to provide the best value for money. Apprenticeships are now utilised to deliver more in-depth knowledge, skills and behaviours as an alternative to previously used standalone qualifications or courses which were not eligible for levy funding.

Culture

We are committed to creating an organisation which promotes openness and trust between our managers and staff. As part of our ‘Safe To’ approach we have been embedding the principles of psychological safety, and the link to personal safety, through our values, ethics, and behaviours training, which sets expectations, encourages discussions and promotes a self-reflective culture.

The ‘Freedom to Speak Up’ programme was officially launched in 2023 as an additional way for staff to raise concerns safely and confidentially. The team of ‘Speak Up Guardians’ is made up of a lead guardian and four additional guardians working within their current job roles on a part-time basis.

Staff wellbeing

We have an extensive range of health and wellbeing support available including counselling, physiotherapy, occupational health services, reasonable adjustment support and medicals for a variety of roles. We analysed our data to enable us to better target support to those who may need it in a timely way.

All health and wellbeing processes have been reviewed to ensure they are fit for purpose, and we have introduced new tools such as:

• a neurodiversity screening tool to support colleagues who may be neurodiverse, ensuring they have an appropriate support plan, or where there is a medical diagnosis, that reasonable adjustments are considered
• eLearning for mental health and stress awareness to help support individual resilience
• introduction of a drugs and alcohol procedure and a screening and support programme.

We engage with Occupational Health to support those who are returning to work. Additionally, our Health and Wellbeing Advisor is available to provide support and direct employees to our mental health and wellbeing resources.

Equality, diversity and inclusion

Since 2022 we have embedded a new Core Code of Ethics alongside our Service values. The framework has provided clear guidance that supports our decision-making at all levels within the Service, providing an ethical compass and assisting us in dealing with challenging situations to ensure we make decisions that align with our core principles.

It is important that we live by our values and generate a positive environment where our staff feel empowered to influence, share knowledge and experiences, and have a voice to ensure we create and maintain a healthy culture within our organisation. Our new People Strategy 2024-2029 will outline the initiatives the Service will implement to support this.

To ensure our employees are supported we have a several staff support networks. These groups meet regularly and are integral to giving perspectives and guidance to leaders and our staff.

The Service attends Pride celebrations and Diversity festivals, to engage, deliver safety advice and talk about recruitment to our diverse communities, whilst also gaining insight and feedback to help design our services.

We have continued to work on engagement and positive action events within all recruitment processes. We hold monthly ‘Have a Go’ days for people who are interested in joining as an on-call firefighter, to gain an overview of the role and an understanding of the strength and fitness expectations. More information about our positive action events can be found through the website in the Have a Go Days section.

We work with ENEI (Employers Network for Equality and Inclusion) and have taken part in their TIDE (Talent, Inclusion and Diversity Evaluation) benchmarking assessment again in 2024. This assesses a range of areas where we are then benchmarked against other organisations to allow us to see where we can make improvements.

Our Annual Workforce Diversity Report 2024 has been published, which highlights where we are doing well and where we must make improvements through recommendations.