LGMA Propellor Programme - Group Project

Propellor Program - Group Project

Meeting Notes from Group discussion at Cherbourg - Friday, 1st April 2011 - 3.30pm to
430pm

Topic:

Local Government is not generally seen as an attractive employment option. Your

task is to develop a programme to promote LG as a career to school leavers,
graduates and adults returning to the workforce.

General:

• The meeting was held at the end of 2 intense days in Gympie and Cherbourg, and just
prior to a long journey home.

• As a result, the discussion was somewhat rushed. A lot of suggestions were raised
without adequate time to talk through each item, as a group, in a relaxed environment.

• General consensus that the group project at future Propellor days need to be given a
little more time, some structure, and some project management disciplines will be
necessary to move the project along within an agreed timeline.

• Given the large group size and limited opportunities to get together, specific tasks will
need to be allocated to individuals or small groups, so that progress can be made
between meetings and reported back to the group meetings.

Progress to date:

• Kim and Mark have established a blog site for use by the group to post information at
a central address accessible by all group members.
http://propellerprogramme2011.blogspot.com/

The blogsite should be used as the central reference point for group members between
meetings.

• Concern expressed by some that the group project is not as advanced as it should be at
this stage.

• Others not so concerned, noting that a 6 month programme could be divided into 3
broad phases:

1. April/May research, information gathering, & key focus areas agreed

2. June/July data analysis, programme development & workshop
3. Aug/Sept finalise programme, prepare final version (report/multimedia)

This would still leave some float in the programme to be complete in Oct/November.
LGMA Propellor Programme - Group Project

• Even so, all agreed the group now needs to focus on obtaining a deeper understanding
of existing knowledge on this topic before we are able to properly develop ideas for a
programme.

Phase 1 Research & Information Gathering

• It was agreed to find out how much information is already available on this topic, and
if necessary, surveys could be prepared to enable the group to develop a programme
that is well founded on evidence-based research.

• Enquiries to be made in the following areas:

o Recruitment Agencies - do they have existing knowledge on Local Govt

perceptions?
- Joe, Mei Lin, Holly to make enquiries
o Professional Bodies
- Todd, Kim, Mark to make enquiries
o Councils
- why do people want to work at Council?
- why do people leave?
- key findings from HR depts.
- all to investigate their own Councils and post findings on blogsite
o Literature Review
- Ant, Jackie, Nancy offered to undertake a lit review

• There was discussion on the merits of undertaking surveys as a way of establishing a

base level of understanding of how a career in local govt is perceived by the three
target groups - school leavers, graduates, adults returning to workforce.

Some examples of things we would like to know:

o Are perceptions of Council similar across each target group, or significantly
different?
o What are the different career motivations/priorities of each target group?
o How to positively engage with each target group through a recruitment
process?

• This base info will be valuable to us as a guide to developing promotional

programmes, whether they be specific to each group or applicable across all.

• It was agreed that a simple survey (using SurveyMonkey format) could be quickly
prepared for each target group, subject to a further group discussion to agree what
information gaps we need to focus on. Representative samples need to be identified
for each target group.
- Vanessa, Jen and Nicole offered to prepare survey questions
- Michael, Jane & Leah offered to focus on school leavers target group
- Alison offered to coordinate distribution of surveys thru LGMA

Meeting ended abruptly at 430pm. Next Meeting 6th May 2011 at Logan.
LGMA Propellor Programme - Group Project