The local authority is looking to bring in a ‘temp-to-perm’ policy.
The move would make it easier for agency workers who met required standards to become a council employee on a permanent basis.
Rob Harbour, director of environment, said having the policy in place would also bring benefits for staff.
Councillors were told there were around 15 vacancies in waste, which equated to 12 per cent of the roles in the service.
These jobs were split across drivers and loaders, with the council going through a recruitment process.
Officers did not have details to hand on the number of agency staff working for the council.
Mr Harbour told members of the overview and scrutiny management committee there was a natural churn of staff in the waste service.
He said: “It is in the organisation’s interest to try to keep those vacancies as low as possible because what we can’t do is operate a waste service with a lot of vacant posts otherwise that means trucks aren’t leaving the yard.”
The senior officer added: “The temp-to-perm will really I think benefit the organisation in terms of providing a relatively smooth and rapid pathway from securing agency staff with the knowledge that if they perform well in their role as an agency member of staff there is a pathway through to potentially a permanent job with the authority.”
The committee heard average annual sickness levels in the waste service had reduced from more than 31 days to 27 days over the past year.
Mr Harbour said: “The current 27 days is a reduction of more than 10 per cent in the past year, some of that is through more active management and support of staff that are suffering with sickness and absentee issues.
“We will continue to work on that with HR colleagues.
“Part of that is about supporting supervisors and middle managers so that actually they can operate within the HR policies we have around absence management.
“I think perhaps that wasn’t being managed as actively in the past as we are now starting to do.”