Best HR Team: Public/Voluntary Sector


WINNER Broadway Homelessness and Support


FINALISTS


• Essex County Council • Trident


ot only has the HR team at London-based charity Broadway Homelessness and Support been vital in helping it get new business over the past year, but it has reached


out and shared its success, by helping many smaller firms improve their HR practices. When underperformance and waste are


around in public services, Broadway’s HR team has proved how investment in simple people-management practices can boost financial health, sustainability and growth in a hostile economy. Over the past 18 months, the team undertook a complex set of strategies, as part of its defined vision for HR. Talent was its first challenge, so it launched


an assessment-centre-based internal agency to employ the highest level of talent and ‘never settle for second best’. The HR team had to consult with unions,


on the one hand, over pay freezes and, on the other, manage complex TUPE transfers of staff from 12 organisations. During this same


14 HR Excellence Awards July 2011


challenging period, the team has strived, with success, to maintain high employee engagement scores – at 86% – across the organisation. This was achieved through consistent communication about cost- cutting, as well as listening to staff concerns. In the past 18 months, the team has also reviewed its learning and development programmes to lower costs, aligning the scheme to business competencies. It designed a bespoke leadership scheme, the success of which has been shown through high 360 degree feedback scores. It worked hard to develop volunteering


schemes to optimise Broadway’s services to its clients in a period of funding cuts, successfully recruiting, inducting, training, placing and managing volunteers. Staff surveys show 97% of managers are


satisfied with the service they receive from the HR team. And customers agree, with a 92% satisfaction rating from its supported- housing and hostel clients. As a result of the myriad of initiatives, Broadway has been chosen by the Chartered Institute of Housing to design and deliver an L&D programme to


staff across the homelessness sector. This is administered from Broadway’s London office. With funding from the Department of Communities and Local Government, Broadway is delivering an HR support service to 40 homelessness charities across the UK that do not have HR departments of their own. Last year also saw the team develop its own


social enterprise HR consultancy – Real People – that works with 53 further client organisations in an advisory role. This is another means by which the organisation boosts its own income and profile. The panel of judges thought business


results were “fantastic”, noting Broadway’s visionary, yet pragmatic, approach within an extremely successful, albeit busy, HR team. From 2011, Broadway will be working on


the Mayor of London’s ‘No second night out’ initiative, to make sure no rough sleeper should ever have to spend more than one night on the street. With exceptional levels of staff training and service delivery, the future for Broadway Homelessness and Support looks promising.


hrmagazine.co.uk


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