Award winning people management initiatives revealed

Six organisations from across the public and private sectors are in the running for the annual CIPD People Management Award, the most prestigious award for cutting edge people management practice.

The short listed finalists are:

Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust
The Royal Bank of Scotland Group ñ RBS Insurance
DEFRA
AXA PPP Healthcare
BUPA Care Homes
Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council

The award recognises unique achievements and best practice in the field of people management and development. Finalists were selected on the basis of the innovative work they are doing to ensure people management helps to deliver business objectives. The winner of the award, now in its 11th consecutive year will be announced on 25 October, at the CIPD Annual Conference and Exhibition.

This year for the first time the award has been divided into three categories:

business impact through learning and development
improving business performance through engaging staff
transformation of the HR function

Winners will be chosen from each category and an overall winner will be selected from this group.

Duncan Brown, CIPD Assistant Director General, said, ìThis award acknowledges the creative initiatives HR professionals are using to improve performance and achieve business objectives. The quality of work from finalists illustrates how good people management can produce both a productive and profitable organisation and a positive working environment for staff.î

Details of the six finalists, across the three categories are as follows:

Business impact through learning and development

AXA PPP Healthcare ñ Project Julie

In response to the recent changes in employment law AXA recognised that it needed to raise awareness among employees of significant aspects of employment law and company procedure. AXA created a pretend employee ëJulieí and over the course of two weeks developed her story, in which she brought a religious discrimination case against the company.

Employees became highly engaged in the story following various events including a ësoapí, online voting and discussions, which enabled them to influence the story and consider the issues it raised.

Project Julie has achieved:

- High levels of awareness
- Development targets at a minimal cost
- A reduction in AXAs exposure to risk
- Re-enforcement of the message that AXA is a good Organisation to work for.

DEFRA ñ Pairing for Performance

DEFRA identified an unproductive ëgradistí culture developing within the organisation. As a result DEFRA introduced a buddy system, pairing senior managers with staff up to five grades their junior to co-develop senior managers and junior staff. As part of the programme junior staff were asked to provide feedback to senior managers based on their interpersonal performance in actual work situations.

The introduction of the buddy system has resulted in:

personal development of both senior managers and their junior buddies
a reduction in ëgradismí
an increase in productivity
buddies transferring what they have learnt into their own teams
the adoption of the programme by other government departments.

Improving business performance through engaging staff

BUPA Care Homes ñ Personal Best

BUPA Care Homes annual satisfaction survey 2003 had shown a slight decline in customer satisfaction. In response BUPA Care Homes launched the Personal Best initiative. The initiative is a behavioural change programme for employees at all levels of the company, addressing the need for improved customer feedback mechanisms and providing for a culture of continuous improvement. The programme was designed to be flexible enough to work with the cultures of individual homes and to allow it to be tailored for part time and shift workers.

At the end of 2005 the organisation received its highest ever satisfaction score among residents, and achieved its best ever financial and job satisfaction results among staff giving it the highest score in the BUPA group. As a result of this success the programme has been further tailored to specific business areas and will be launched in BUPA owned care homes in Spain.

Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council ñ Exchange ñ Change 4 You, Change 4 Excellence

In 2002 Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council introduced a programme to provide employees with the opportunity to offer ideas and suggestions for improvement. As part of this project they introduced new methods of communications to cascade messages to managers and employees, and tactics to gain employee feedback. During 2005 these measures were brought together under the ëExchangeí brand and a panel of 300 employees was set up for consultation on issues associated with the employee experience and the services provided by the organisation.

The introduction of the programme resulted in a number of improvements:

165 employee suggestions were generated within the first seven months of the scheme, in comparison with just over 200 in the four years the previous scheme was running.
A 2004 employee opinion survey and the 2005 Investors in People reassessment showed improvements in employee perceptions and overall employee satisfaction increased by 6% while morale increased by 8%.

Transformation of the HR function

Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust ñ HR Audit and Review Project

Leeds Teaching Hospitals Trust undertook a comprehensive audit and review of its HR function. The review project was designed to quantify the services provided and assess the effectiveness of its HR team.

The project found that over 50% of time was spent on administrative tasks. As a result Leeds Teaching Hospitals Trust restructured its HR team giving it a clear strategic and advisory focus and reduced its staffing levels, from 92 HR employees fulfilling a high percentage of administrative roles to 36 professional HR practitioners.

The Royal Bank of Scotland Group ñ RBS Insurance ñ Embracing the HR Consulting Model

RBS Insurance was created in September 2003 when Direct Line was integrated with Churchill Insurance. Both Direct Line and Churchill Insurance operated under a traditional HR generalist model and needed transforming to the RBS Group HR Platform and Shared Services model.

Under the new model advisory work and transactional services would be handled by Shared Services, while the Group HR team would work as a strategic HR function on value adding projects.

The introduction of the new HR model has improved employee satisfaction in several key areas, as shown in the RBS employee opinion survey, with more employees feeling recognised and rewarded and an increase in staff retention.