Workforce Well-being & Overcoming the Retention Crisis

Public sector employers can rarely out-pay the private sector — so retention has to be won on something else. This panel brings together national HR leadership, emergency services, and independent research to explore what genuinely moves the needle: from non-monetary perks and flexible working to career pathways that give staff a reason to build a long-term future in public service.

• Why pay alone can't solve the public sector's retention problem — and what actually can
• How flexible working and non-monetary benefits are being used to compete with private sector offers
• Lessons from a major emergency service on retaining staff in high-pressure, operationally demanding roles
• What CIPD research reveals about the real drivers behind public sector attrition

Innovation, loyalty, and long-term thinking anchor this opening session. Join us to explore how public services can hold on to the talent they can least afford to lose.

Neurodivergent staff bring strengths that traditional recruitment and management practices too often fail to recognise, let alone unlock. This panel moves the conversation beyond basic inclusion, exploring how adapting recruitment processes, office environments, and management styles can turn neurodiversity into a genuine source of innovation and capability across the civil service.

• Where standard recruitment and workplace design create the biggest barriers for neurodivergent candidates and staff
• How the DfT is rethinking inclusion strategy to move neurodiversity from accommodation to advantage
• What specialist charities are learning about translating neurodivergent talent into public sector success stories
• Occupational psychology insights on designing public sector workplaces that work for every kind of mind

Understanding, adaptation, and untapped potential drive this entire session. Join us to explore how the civil service can move from ticking the inclusion box to genuinely unlocking neurodivergent talent.

Social workers, prison officers, and healthcare staff are absorbing pressure that would break most workplaces — unprecedented caseloads, chronic understaffing, and relentless emotional demand. This panel brings together mental health leadership, frontline service directors, and a leading mental health charity to examine what proactive, meaningful support looks like for the staff carrying public services through crisis.

• Why frontline roles in social care, prisons, and healthcare face a distinct and severe burnout risk
• What proactive mental health first aid looks like when embedded into daily frontline operations
• A children's services perspective on protecting staff wellbeing amid sustained workload backlogs
• Mind's view on what public sector employers still get wrong about frontline mental health support

Compassion, prevention, and honesty run through this discussion. Join us to explore how public services can protect the mental health of the people holding the system together.

Nothing tests organisational culture quite like the growing gap between remote desk-based staff and frontline workers tied permanently to a site or a shift pattern. This panel tackles the friction directly, bringing together operational, housing, council, and academic perspectives to explore how public sector organisations can build fairness and shared culture across fundamentally different working realities.

• Why hybrid working policies designed for office staff often land badly with site-tied frontline workers
• How HMRC is working to close the perception gap between flexible and operationally fixed roles
• A housing association's experience managing culture across a genuinely mixed workforce
• What workplace culture research reveals about building fairness without flattening real operational differences

Fairness, respect, and shared purpose define this closing session. Join us to explore how public services can bridge the hybrid divide and build a culture that works for every member of staff, wherever they're based.