People Strategy (2026 to 2029)
Purpose
To build the workforce, leadership and culture required to deliver the One Coventry Plan, creating an inclusive, high performing organisation where people are supported to do their best work.
Our ambition
Where we are now, we have a committed, experienced workforce with strong public service values and pride in serving Coventry. The employee survey also points to specific areas where we can be more consistent and fairer, strengthen trust, improve the experience of change, and make performance and development conversations more useful day-to-day.
By 2029, Coventry City Council will be recognised as a fair, inclusive, and high performing employer, with clear expectations, strong leadership, and transparent people practices. Colleagues will experience consistency, trust and opportunity throughout their employment lifecycle, and our workforce will better reflect the communities we serve.
Strategic Priorities (2026 to 2029)
The People Strategy is structured around 4 integrated priorities that span the employee lifecycle:
- Workforce Planning: A proactive, data driven approach to ensure we have the right people, skills, and capacity in place now and for the future.
- Culture and Behaviour: Embedding inclusion, trust, fairness, wellbeing and belonging as core organisational strengths.
- Performance: Creating a high-performance culture based on clear expectations, regular feedback and coaching led conversations.
- Learning and Development: Becoming a learning organisation that builds capability, strengthens leadership, and supports career progression at all levels.
What Success Looks Like by 2029
- clear and consistent expectations for leadership, management, and performance.
- stronger leadership accountability for people management.
- improved recruitment, retention, and workforce sustainability.
- fairer, more equitable people decisions and reduced disproportionality.
- improved staff engagement, wellbeing, and performance outcomes.
(Detailed objectives, measures, and delivery actions are set out in the People Plan)
The Golden Thread
From strategy to outcomes:
- One Coventry Plan: outcomes for residents and communities
- People Strategy 2026 to 2029: workforce, leadership and culture required
- 4 People Plan priorities: workforce planning, culture and behaviour, performance, and Learning and Development
- policies, frameworks and programmes: performance management, workforce planning, leadership development
- everyday leadership and behaviours: clear expectations, coaching, fair people management
- measurable impact: engagement and wellbeing, retention and diversity, performance and service outcomes
Coventry Demographics and Employee Data
Coventry’s Starting Point: Coventry City Council employs approximately 5,200 staff across a wide range of services. Our workforce is committed and experienced, with many long-serving colleagues and strong public service values. At the same time, demographic trends, skills pressures and representation gaps highlight where we need to plan more proactively for the future.
Our recent Employee Survey shows strong commitment to serving Coventry’s communities. It also identifies opportunities to improve fairness, trust, performance management and the experience of change, particularly through greater consistency, earlier communication and clearer expectations. These insights shape the priorities in this plan.
The plan considers the Council’s Diversity and Inclusion Strategy actions and the employment law changes expected over the next few years, including changes introduced through the Employment Rights Act. People Services will monitor legislative changes, update policies and guidance, and provide manager briefings and training to ensure we remain compliant and consistent.
Leadership KPIs, Ownership and Reporting
This plan is delivered through a shared model: People Services will provide the frameworks, tools, data and specialist support; leaders and managers will apply them equitably in every service. Progress will be reported through data/insights reviewed quarterly by the Corporate Leadership Board:
- People Services will lead/enable; workforce and people analytics; policy and process design (e.g., recruitment, onboarding, performance, attendance); learning offer design and delivery; employee relations advice and casework standards; HR systems and automation (including safe use of AI enabled tools); and organisation wide communications, guidance and templates
- Leaders and managers are accountable for workforce plans for their service; timely recruitment decisions; high quality onboarding; regular performance and wellbeing conversations; managing performance, attendance and conduct fairly and appropriately; completing mandatory manager training; and using data and feedback to improve their teams’ experience and service outcomes