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Working for Barking and Dagenham
Find out why Barking and Dagenham council is a great place to work.
Benefits of working for us
There are a range of benefits available to staff including:
- flexible working (including flexi-time, part and term-time working)
- up to 30 days annual leave
- Local Government Pension Scheme
- learning and development
- season ticket and travel loans
- discounted gym membership
- employee support and networking groups
- retail, holiday and travel discounts with our Wider Wallet scheme
- cycle purchase scheme
- credit union membership
Download our staff benefits information pack (PDF, 268KB)
Download our staff charter which sets out what you can expect from us and what we expect from our staff (PDF, 328KB)
Our accolades and accreditations
We’re proud of our achievements and our staff who’ve got us here.
Social Care Workplace Racial Equality Standards (WRES)
London Borough of Barking and Dagenham was selected as one of 18 local authorities in the UK to pilot the Workplace Racial Equalities Standards methodology, which ensures that employees from black, asian and minority ethnic (BAME) backgrounds have equal access to career opportunities and receive fair treatment in the workplace.
The council's task was to look at workforce racial equality in Adults and Children’s Services against a set of 9 nationally determined measures - including leadership representation and recruitment – before working with staff to codesign an action plan to improve performance against these metrics.
In January 2022, a group of frontline practitioners and managers from across Adult’s and Children’s services took part in a series of workshops to review the data, share their lived experience and to suggest actions that will make a real difference to race equality in Barking & Dagenham council.
The workshops were designed to build on the ideas that had already been developed within Care & Support services throughout 2021, including as part of the development of an anti-racism framework for social care.
The ideas that came out of these workshops were taken through a rigorous development process, involving directors at the council along with experts in this area, to explore viability, feasibility, and connection to other areas of council work. This process led to the development of a detailed action plan focusing on activities and deliverables. Four metrics were prioritised in the action plan including leadership, career progression and harassment, bullying and abuse experienced by staff.
The term Global Majority is used throughout the action plan. This reflects feedback from the workshop participants, who preferred this term rather than BAME.
Metric one: Leadership
|
Workshop discussion theme |
Desired outcome |
Actions | Person responsible |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Visibility is everything Support to thrive Global Majority staff need extra |
Support internal (and where appropriate) external talent from the global majority group to achieve success at a leadership level. |
Develop and implement a talent management and success planning framework, including developing meaningful targets Review of existing policies (e.g. secondments, acting up etc.) and further embed to ensure full utilisation Learning and development to support inclusion training for all, especially those in a leadership position Broaden mentoring offer, within LBBD and pan-London |
Acting Chief Executive & Director of Workforce Change Director of Workforce Change Director of Workforce Change
Director of Workforce Change |
Metric two: Career Progression
|
Workshop discussion theme |
Desired outcome |
Actions | Person responsible |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Nowhere to go Manager support Rewards and incentives |
Managers will be more confident regarding career conversations, employees take ownership for their careers. Fair and competitive approach to reward at a leadership level, with clear pathways to get there. Evidence-based approach to ensure people feel valued and engaged. |
Ensure all employees are able to play a part in having effective career conversations (and linked to performance management)
Complete senior salary review corporate-wide to ensure rewarding fairly and competitively
Provide clear pathways for people to work towards the next level – Social Care pathway and leadership pathway
Reward and recognition in Social Care – conduct exercise (including benchmarking) to identify good principles and share/promote with Social Care managers |
Acting Chief Executive & Director of Workforce Change
Acting Chief Executive & Director of Workforce Change
Director of Workforce Change
Strategic Director for Childrens and Adults, Operational Director for Children's Care and Support, Operational Director for Adult’s Care and Support |
Metric Three: Harassment, bullying or abuse – residents interacting with service, relatives or public
|
Workshop discussion theme |
Desired outcome |
Actions |
Person responsible |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Abuse is normalised Will something be done? Zero Tolerance |
All employees understand that we have a zero-tolerance stance against abuse from service users. There is a common understanding of what is not acceptable and there is support if they experience such negative behaviours. |
Involvement and sponsorship from Members Cross-service working party, with representatives from services that have most interaction with public (ComSol, Public Realm, My Place). Working party to address:
Strong communications campaign |
Strategic Leadership Team and Cabinet
|
Metric Four: Harassment, bullying or abuse – colleagues or line manager
|
Workshop discussion theme |
Desired outcome |
Actions |
Person responsible |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Trust in the system Trust in relationships Cultural sensitivity |
All employees know the channels for reporting incidents, how the policy supports them and that if they flag an issue it will be followed up and dealt with by their line manager. There is an openness to learning how cultural differences can influence communication. |
Harassment and Abuse policy updated and fully implemented and embedded (including learning opportunities re: micro-aggressions). Communication and training plan to be included, and monitoring/review
Managers held to account for their role in supporting via performance management
|
Director for Workforce Change
Director for Workforce Change |