Personnel Today Awards shortlist 2024: HR Team of The Year

The HR Team of 2024 category entrants demonstrated a genuine strategic position within their organisation and contributed to their employer’s goals. The shortlist for this year’s award is shown below.

King’s College London

King’s College London, in 2022, announced a new, university-wide, strategy to be implemented by 2026. The organisational development team was tasked with achieving one of the four key goals, which is creating a vibrant staff community.

The team conducted its first employee survey for six years, which included a survey of its 10500+ staff to understand what challenges they faced. This revealed where the team excelled, and areas that could be improved. The team then identified three strategic areas of improvement and set specific, measurable objectives for each. Included were goals relating to inclusion and belonging as well as wellbeing and engagement.

King’s restructured its team to enable it to deliver on the above. The team grew from seven individuals up until 21 and now includes equality, diversity, and inclusion.

Having identified areas for improvement via the survey, the team then outlined actions to take divided along two lines: at central level by the OD team and at local level by KCL’s 27 faculties/directorates. In order to ensure that each function was focused on delivering their plans, the team delivered masterclasses for local function leaders. It also created communities of best practices and met regularly with all functions. The central level initiatives included spearheading an apprenticeship programme, improved policies/benefits for employees to improve wellbeing and enhanced management and leader training.

Its actions had a positive impact on reducing the ethnicity and gender gaps in pay, as well as reducing voluntary attrition. As for development and advancement, the number of internal promotions as compared to external hires, as well as job applications referred by staff, increased.

Leyton

Leyton Financial Advisors developed a strategy to build a culture of collaboration and performance, while also nurturing their workforce. The company wanted to help people balance work and home life, improve their well-being, and boost their productivity and job satisfaction, all while creating a positive working environment that allowed them to build rewarding careers. Leyton used its existing HR system to capture information that was then fed into a customized HR dashboard. This allowed the company to measure and track people analytics, and identify areas for improvement.

It then created a dashboard to measure equity, diversity and inclusion. Then it introduced an employee-led Diversity Council. It sent out a DE&I questionnaire and held one-to-one and group meetings across departments. Data helped define next steps for developing, improving and introducing new initiatives and benefits. Leyton has enhanced its flexible work policy to include remote working. This allows staff to work remotely from home or abroad up to three week periods.

After benchmarking, analysis and a new policy was launched, allowing employees to take up to 26-weeks of maternity leave, parental leave shared, and adoption leave, with enhanced paternity leaves from the first day and year. The talent development team has introduced a variety of training and is supporting the staff with coaching sessions. The company launched awards and nominations as well as a podcast every month. The company held webinars on financial well-being and conducted a poll. It also implemented a new employee support programme, as well as mental health training in the workplace for managers.

Lucy Group

Lucy Group, a power distribution company, wanted to let its employees know they could grow their careers and feel a connection with the business. They also wanted them to understand that they had influenced commercial success and were valued for every contribution. It wanted to foster innovation by providing products and service that met customers’ changing requirements, and embed sustainability into its operations and product offerings.

To achieve its goal of “performance excellence”, careful planning, dedication, influence and collaboration were required. The HR team began by implementing SMART goals and a global HRIS, Oracle, for the collection and management of people data. HR introduced key activities such as communication, training, stakeholder involvement, data analysis and reporting, and one-toone coaching.

The team faced resistance at all levels but maintained momentum throughout the pandemic. The HR team established a series of five strategic priorities that were able to turn senior managers into advocates. These included: high-performing businesses, customer-centricity, engagement and development, sustainability and excellence through innovative. The HR team invited each business leader to adapt the priorities to their business, and then cascade them from top to bottom so that employees’ performance goals were closely aligned with business plans.

HR also implemented employee engagement surveys. The HR team used feedback to track the employees’ understanding and approval of the group’s strategic approach, and to take correctional measures in pockets where there was a lack of alignment. The executive board, led by the director of HR for the executive board, became a strong advocate of the strategy of performance excellence and encouraged each of the five business leaders to adopt and put it into action.

South Western Railway

South Western Railway’s people and culture department aimed to deliver strategy across the entire portfolio, from recruitment to employee relations to benefits, rewards, and learning. This was against a backdrop of reduced engagement, strained industrial relations and a nine month recruitment freeze.

In its three-year strategy plan, SWR committed to creating a great workplace. Six people and culture objectives are included in this plan to acknowledge the role that its employees play in driving positive change for customers and its business. Local strategies are used to identify trends, challenges and opportunities. Plans are then developed to deal with them.

SWR has changed its working methods, bringing specialists in culture, engagement, diversity and inclusion, benefits and recognition, and leadership into one culture and change function. Recruitment has also undergone changes. The team has grown and it now follows a business partnership approach. The team has also purchased a web-based, modern, modular HR Management Information System solution (HRMIS), allowing all records to be gathered in one location. A new role of system trainer was created.

The employee relations department has provided in-house coaching and training for managers. They have also ensured that all staff can access and understand the new payslips. SWR’s Culture and Change function has improved recognition and benefit programmes. The wellbeing team worked to ‘ensure all SWR employees feel supported at work’, by supporting the 100+ workplace mental health first aiders and implementing a new trauma-risk management policy and training.

The organisation has developed a new vision, purpose and mission, which is supported by underlying behaviors.

SUEZ Recycling and Recovery UK

After a period characterized by uncertainty in 2023, the leadership at SUEZ Recycling and Recovery UK took strategic decisions to maintain consistency and resilience. It also relaunched the company’s strategy and renewed it, with the goal of ‘increasing revenue by atleast 50% to reach PS1.5billion by 2030. The HR team took a collaborative approach to achieve these goals.

A mobilisation plan that included all HR departments was created. This included learning and development, HR Systems, people services and operations. It also included health, safety, wellbeing and payroll. Monthly mobilisation meetings were the key to this strategy. Through these, all teams could collaborate and create an engagement plan, as well as materials to ensure new employees have all the information needed to integrate.

The HR team developed milestones to ensure that all mobilizations are well-communicated. The team also developed mechanisms for regular engagement with the entire business services team. In the face of uncertainty, the acquisitions and mobilisations show that the company is on the right track to meet its growth goals. The company was able distribute the necessary PPE to its employees and provide them with training. It also analyzed its payroll data and found that on average, more than 80% individuals received their first pay cycle on time.

The company achieved high levels of employee engagement and a decrease in sick leave.

Zopa Bank

In order to achieve its business strategy, Zopa Bank needed to reduce attrition rates and increase productivity.

The firm has significantly improved, hired, and reorganized its capability in the last 18 months. It introduced strategic partners in talent acquisition and business, and created a team of people analytics to provide operational and strategic support for all aspects of employee lifecycle. It also monitors, evaluates, and reports on the impact of its initiatives both on business outcomes and employee satisfaction.

Zopa has created a team to manage the people-facing experiences, such as internal communication, employee engagement and benefits. This team constantly analyses the internal and external environments, business needs and challenges while also gaining feedback from employees. This information was used to identify the most important priorities and areas for improvement. It also developed a roadmap of implementation, and worked with other departments and senior management in order to get their buy-in and support for change management.

The long-term strategy for people is based on this collective insight. The company’s overall strategy is now based on the people outcomes, which are one of four cornerstones. This has a major impact on its balanced scorecard. It used its skills and expertise to find innovative solutions to people-related challenges and opportunities. To execute these initiatives, it utilized various tools and methods, including HRIS, workshops, surveys, coaching and mentoring. The 31-member team has a shared vision and clear goals. Individual roles and responsibilities are defined.