Award winning people management initiatives revealed

Six organisations from across the public and private sectors are in the running for the most prestigious award for cutting edge people management practice. The six short-listed for the CIPD People Management Award 2004 have been selected from the largest number of entries since the award was launched in 1995.

Geoff Armstrong, CIPD Director General, says:
People are the differentiators between organisational success and failure. The six finalists have shown how good people management policies can help organisations improve performance and achieve business objectives.

The six finalists are:

BAA - Terminal 5
T5 Incident and Injury-Free programme

At least two people would have died during the construction of Terminal 5 if BAA only achieved industry-average safety results. BAA considered this unacceptable and launched the T5 Incident and Injury-Free programme to change the safety culture on T5.

Their employee survey results revealed:

*78% agreed that if they feel unsafe they can stop the job and speak to their supervisor

*72% reduction in the frequency of accidents since the programme has been in place

Liverpool North Merseyside Police
A Leadership Accreditation Scheme: Prepared to Lead

In 2002 Liverpool North Merseyside Police were struggling to meet all of their crime targets. A newly installed command team conducted an audit which identified that the problems they were facing had been triggered by a series of massive changes to internal structures, roles and responsibility. Performance management systems were installed at every level and throughout every function.

The leadership programme has produced outstanding results, including:

*Efficiency savings of 547,660
*32% increase in the number of crimes detected
*Overall reduction of crimes committed by 10%
*Increased availability of each officer by almost 4 days

Met Office
Met Office on the Move

To sustain its business future the Met Office relocated its Headquarters, Operations and Research Centres from Bracknell to Exeter. The move involved over 1,000 members of staff relocating and moving two supercomputers, whilst continuing to provide around the clock operational services.

Careful planning ensured:

*Gains on business and revenue targets
*The transfer worked to the schedule
*The majority of key staff made the move - ensuring expertise was retained and making a net contribution of 25 million
*The transfer was completed with no interruption to business output

INA Bearing Company Limited
L>C - the rate of learning must be greater than the rate of change

INA Bearing is a manufacturer of high precision engine components employing 360 people. They have experienced severe competition from lower wage countries, and as a result many ’low tech’ products have been transferred away from the plant.

The management team embarked on a culture change programme, with the vision of being the ’Production Location of Choice’. The programme focused on productivity and efficiency by encouraging continuous improvement and lifelong learning.

Positive outcomes from the programme include:

*Increased productivity
*Improved standards of housekeeping
*Improved quality performance
*Lower absenteeism

Hewlett-Packard
Managing cultural change and building a high-performance workplace

In 2002 Hewlett-Packard (HP) and Compaq began preparing for the largest technology merger in history. Central to the success of the integration process was a strategy that created a high-performance workplace and energised employees to feel that HP is the best place to work in the Europe, Middle East and Asia (EMEA) region.

Aligning technologies with standardised human resources processes and systems enabled HP to achieve their key objectives:

*Decrease HR costs by more than 30%
*Significant cost savings of $5million
*Used self-service staff to free over 200,000 hours annually
*Delivered global workforce data for faster decision making

Compass Group Plc
Business improvement journey from good to great

Now in the top 30 FTSE listed companies, Compass Group is the tenth largest employer in the world.

Compass Group’s growth has been predominantly through acquisition. However in 2002 Compass group announced that its strategy would be to limit acquisitions and concentrate on organic growth. Their aim was to create a company that would be admired as much for its people and service as it was for its results.

Compass Group has achieved:

*An organic growth figure of 6% turnover
*10% on operating profit
*88% of Compass employees enjoy their jobs and feel motivated