Public Sector Shuns Tough Times and Show Excellence at the PPMA Awards
This years Public Sector People Managers Association (PPMA) awards saw excellence from many councils that have worked tirelessly to make headway in innovating, collaborating and initiating change and progression within public sector HR to add real value in terms of improving efficiency and reducing costs.
The PPMA awards, presented by incoming PPMA president Gillian Hibberd, was held at the Midland Hotel, Manchester, on Wednesday 29th April 2009.
Hibberd commented: “The quality of entrants this year has been astonishing. We are delighted that, despite the recession, councils are still making every effort to look after their staff and remain competitive whilst cutting costs and improving efficiency.
“What’s even more exciting is that due to the increasing popularity of the event we have added two more categories this year, HR transformation and HR efficiency and business impact. The former award recognises those that have transformed HR to deliver stronger business performance and the latter award commends those that have utilised HR to enable its organisation to become more efficient and make a real business impact.”
Winners:
Leeds City Council won the Wellbeing award for demonstrating its business gains through implementing a successful wellbeing strategy that ensured high levels of employee attendance and employee engagement. The judges added: “the competition for this award was fierce and we struggled to select the finalists given the strength of the entries submitted”.
The HR Innovation award went to Birmingham City Council who wowed the judges with its smart, creative and modern approach to employee engagement. Workshops were lead by example from the executive management team to encourage employees to come up with actions for improvements around service delivery and the council effectively got to grips with the likes of Twitter and Facebook to underpin it all. As a result the council saw staff views of managing positive change leap from 24% to 70%. Furthermore, 135,000 Birmingham residents saw improvements. Judges were extremely impressed with the entry – especially given the fact that not only did it fend off stiff competition from other international entries, but it also won in the most highly entered category.
Northern Ireland won the award for the PPMA region of the year; it was recognised for stimulating membership growth in the region and aiding continual development of the PPMA and its members. The award is also in recognition of the hurdles Northern Ireland has overcome with its historical challenges of segregation and religious discrimination to ensure best practice HR in its region.
Cambridgeshire County Council met the challenges of the recession, increasing public sector pressures and need to reward to retain and attract social workers head on – and that is why it won the Total Reward award. The council managed to evidence the impact total reward had on this critical service area.
The award for Talent Management went to London Borough of Sutton as it showed unstoppable commitment to the skills pledge. The council’s “skills for life” strategy has shown real return on investment and helped improve organisational performance – with resident satisfaction getting consistently better. Incoming vice-president of PPMA and shortlisted HR Magazine Director of the Year, Dean Shoesmith – HR Director for the council – commented: “I am absolutely thrilled with this award; it is a great passion of mine – looking at ways to up-skill the workforce. Training the workforce has such clear benefits for all, from employees finding renewed confidence to work, through to businesses that benefit from extra skilled workers. I am delighted our council had been recognised for this award.”
London Borough of Haringey won the award for Human Capital Management due to using its robust HR systems and key performance indicators to show the value and impact its investment has had on the workforce and organisational development. The council clearly demonstrated the value it holds with the staff it employs.
The new HR efficiency and business impact award went to London Borough of Croydon for the seemingly impossible task of demonstrating how it lowered costs and improved service efficiency. This is an area that has come under increasing scrutiny of late and the judges commended the council for showcasing clear links between the metrics and strategy used.
Double award winners of the night, London Borough of Croydon, also bagged the new award for HR Transformation. The judges were extremely impressed with the way the council has transformed its HR function and the benefits that have arisen from Croydon’s Leadership Academy was of particular gold standard. Through this academy the council has transformed leadership and improved employee relations and service delivery across the council.
The competition for the award of Outstanding contribution was so great that the judges had to award two – one to an individual and another to a team. Alan Warner won one of the awards as judges were mightily impressed by his contribution to public sector HR and the PPMA itself. IDeA OD and the people management team also won the award for outstanding team contribution – thanks to all the work it has done, on a national scale, for improving people management across the public sector.
