Demonstrating the ever-increasing stature of the CIPD People Management Awards, this year’s event was the first to be held as a standalone event, separate from the CIPD annual conference.

The winners of each of the 10 individual categories, profiled over the next few pages, took to the stage at The Brewery in London on 11 October to receive the recognition they deserve. But as always there could only be one overall winner – and this year that accolade went to Amey, which also won the Building HR Capability category.

Ultimately, the judges were singling out organisations that demonstrated “a passion for the profession to be more of a profession”, according to Hugh Hood, director of organisational development at headline sponsor BT, who sat on the final judging panel along with the CIPD’s director of HR capability, Stephanie Bird (panel chair), and People Management’s editor, Rob MacLachlan.

“It’s not just about bringing the professional body to the fore,” Hood says. “It’s also about asking: what is best practice? Where have people really made a difference to their business in a planned, systematic way and then learnt from it? It’s about showcasing, it’s about spreading innovation and best practice, and entrants really had an appetite to do this.”

That appetite secured the overall winner award for public services infrastructure provider Amey. With dramatic and continued growth in employee numbers – largely through Tupe – Amey’s HR team had been forced to admit that its capability development had been neglected in favour of dealing with here-and-now issues. The function followed cumbersome, manual processes and had to get to grips with 4,000 job titles and an unknown number of people managers. It had little control over the large number of temporary agency workers employed, while its shared service centre had not been well received.

The team identified that in order to fulfil Amey’s aim of achieving increased revenues, HR had to become a key driver in the business. Its mission was clear: to transform into a strategic function that developed capability, worked collaboratively and was aligned to business priorities.

An important step towards greater collaboration came from bringing together centres of excellence and shared service teams, along with increased interaction and movement across the business. A specialist bidding and Tupe team was established and the number of job titles cut to 450. Communication with line managers was improved through, among other things, an intranet, regular updates and telephone support, and a self-service system was also rolled out. The HR team have seen improvements in their own working lives, too, with CIPD competencies mapped to roles, clear career paths and succession plans resulting in more promotions, and opportunities for sponsorship to do a CIPD qualification.

The business results are, by any measure, extraordinary. HR costs have been reduced by £1.6m a year and organisational restructuring has saved overhead employee costs, while legal costs have been cut by 40 per cent a year and temporary labour spend reduced by £0.7m in 2011. The good news doesn’t end there, though; last year Amey not only became more competitive by being able to reduce pricing for new contracts, but it also achieved a 5 per cent increase in profit.

The judges commented that the “down-to-earth, gritty” entry was in itself an example of best practice – “the inspiration was there and the implementation was clear”. They praised the practicality and clarity of the career pathway, strategic framing, commercial focus and integration of services, noting that it would appeal to organisations in other sectors.

Amey had, concluded the judges, “completely redesigned the HR structure and philosophy in a go-ahead way, which is commercially successful in an industry badly hit by the recession”.

Other categories

Change management
Winner: West Midlands Fire Service

With its predominantly white, male workforce, the service was aware that it faced barriers to diversity. The organisation recognised that a “paradigm shift” in employee culture was necessary in order to deliver better organisational outcomes – including in its relationships with groups within the wider community that it served. Internally, the equality and diversity team was restructured so that it promoted core values and behaviours, training was revamped and a programme of diversity events initiated. Externally, extensive community engagement initiatives sought to raise awareness, especially within high-risk groups such as the Roma Gypsy community. Recruitment rates among women and black and minority ethnic groups have improved, while community engagement has been extensive.

The judges noted that the service’s approach “involved not only their internal culture but was also about engaging with external stakeholders and with local community needs”. The “targeted and innovative strategy”, based on a strong and clearly defined business case, had “ultimately saved lives”.

Employee engagement
Winner: DB Regio Tyne & Wear Ltd

The creation last year of a brand-new company to manage the Tyne and Wear Metro light rail concession, coupled with the challenge of integrating a Tupe workforce of more than 500, prompted DB Regio Tyne & Wear Ltd to develop the “My Metro” engagement programme. A key strategy was to use internal facilitators without a training background to deliver the programme and empower their colleagues to contribute their ideas to the new business, while cross-department collaboration was also encouraged. The initial programme has developed further to include recognition and suggestion schemes and a newsletter, while internal facilitators are flourishing in expanded roles.

The entry, said the judges, displayed an “impressive scale of success” considering the obstacles generated by Tupe; indeed, the organisation had “worked some sort of miracle”. Judges were also impressed by the use of home-grown facilitators: “The huge delivery challenge was met by putting engagement at the heart of everything they did.”

Excellence through technology
Winner: Unilever and Silverman Research

Following negative reactions to its revamped compensation and support package for employees working outside their home countries, the consumer goods multinational embarked on a policy review. In order to glean employees’ opinions, an innovative online research tool was developed by Unilever and Silverman Research, using social media elements and the latest data visualisation technology. As well as enabling participants to judge their position in relation to others, the company was able to use the cost-effective tool to “crowdsource” for suggestions. Participants found the process engaging and, as a result of the findings, Unilever is planning policy changes.

The judges were impressed with the level of innovation that “turned conventional wisdom on its head”. The technology harnessed “a new way of thinking and conceptualising that really represents the essence of diversity”. The project was, concluded the judges, “groundbreaking and game changing – not just for the technology they used but for the profession”.

Health and wellbeing
Category sponsored by Simplyhealth

Winner: Police Service of Northern Ireland

Drawing on government policy, the service developed its “Wellbeing” project, encouraging culture change by empowering line managers to manage the wellbeing of themselves and their team. Together with other employers, including the University of Ulster and Northern Bank, a best-practice hub was established, alongside a cancer support association with input from local partners. Initiatives have been carried out at strategic, management and individual levels and include a cycle-to-work scheme, 24-hour employee telephone support, “health patrol” lifestyle assessments and rapid access to physiotherapy. As a result, sickness absence in 2009-10 was the lowest of any public-sector organisation in Northern Ireland.

The entry had, noted the judges, “clear alignment to organisation vision and values”. The strong stakeholder support and engagement was welcomed, as was the use of “comprehensive and impressive toolkits”. Judges also commended the clear cost-benefit measurement and benchmarking, as well as the way that the integrated approach incorporated leadership and management capability.

Organisational learning
Winner: Wm Morrison Supermarkets Plc

The company’s accelerated leadership programme formed part of its drive to “become different and better than ever”. Through the programme, senior managers had a two-pronged role to fulfil: to lead the supermarket chain forward and to prepare themselves to become future executive directors. The entrepreneurial focus encouraged the managers to try out innovations in the very public setting of branches, from exploring new shopfloor layouts to trialling time-saving initiatives. Since the programme began, the supermarket has seen increased sales, a number of key promotions and a range of initiatives rolled out that are expected to save £20m in 2011-12.

Judges were impressed with the way that a relatively small programme had “driven a disproportionately large scale of change and innovation in the business”. They were impressed with the “focus on using real, business-critical experiments – big bets for the business – as a vehicle for developing leaders”.

Performance and reward
Category sponsor JMP

Winner: Institution of Civil Engineers

As part of its reward philosophy, the institution set out to close its two pension schemes and establish a new one that was fairer to all employees. It also sought to tackle the lack of understanding that prevented around 40 per cent of employees from joining, by offering one-to-one advice. When the project faced being pulled because of senior management concerns, the project team successfully argued their case; subsequent savings were ploughed into group income protection cover, life assurance and private medical insurance. And, thanks to the education initiative, many employees said that, for the first time, they fully understood pensions.

The institute had, said judges, “demonstrated creativity and a real understanding of what managing diversity and inclusion mean”, not least in the face of opposition. This was “a really good example of involving change management in a really difficult area, in a not-for-profit business and in difficult times”.

SME HR business initiative of the year
Winner: vineHR

Through a strategic HR partnership, local authorities in Essex have been working collaboratively to deliver leadership and management development programmes, an e-learning platform, recruitment contracts, training and apprenticeship schemes, as well as achieving impressive savings through joint contracts for suppliers and services. This was taken a step further this year with the creation of not-for-profit company vineHR, formed by the HR heads of all 15 local authorities in Essex. Despite the challenges presented by running a company in a public-sector setting, the strategic partnership has established a solid foundation for moving to shared services and promoting cost-effectiveness.

This was, said the judges, “a great example of true innovation in HR” where “collaboration is clearly evident in creating an exciting future”. One judge went as far as to comment that the entry “blew my mind in terms of what HR can do when you pool resources and break down barriers”.

Talent attraction and management
Category sponsor Hays

Winner: Warwickshire County Council and Warwickshire Children and Voluntary Youth Services

In a joint initiative, the two organisations created a two-year workforce development programme for the youth sector, with the aim of building capability and incorporating new approaches. This included establishing a strategic approach to CPD delivery, integrating HR processes and protocols, developing career pathways, improving partnership working and promoting shared learning. These initiatives boosted staff morale, which had been suffering from the ever-present threat of funding cuts, and strengthened relationships across Warwickshire and neighbouring local authorities. The programme also embedded an understanding of the benefits of integrated processes and protocols and created a thirst for learning and development.

Judges praised the programme’s role in improving morale and skills at an uncertain time; it was clearly linked to benefits for service users and was an “example of HR being at its proactive best”. The continual evaluation of strategy and evidence of key learning factors was also praised.

Michael Kelly outstanding student award
Winner: Jessica Haglington, Rolls-Royce

Despite its desire to recruit internally, Rolls-Royce’s global supply chain, planning and control function had been struggling to find suitable candidates. This problem, coupled with employee survey results showing poor scores in learning and development, professional development, talent development and functional identity, led Jessica Haglington to establish the internal “My Future” programme. The series of one-day global talent events examined personal barriers and motivators, as well as introducing participants to the career stories of high-profile employees. This was followed by a jobs fair and further support to assess individual skills gaps. As a result, external recruitment was reduced and a stronger sense of functional identity was achieved.

The judges commented that this “well-executed project with global reach” showed strong evidence of meeting business needs and was “a clear example of ‘insight-led HR’”, with Jessica’s CIPD studies informing the project throughout. “The candidate is an outstanding example of an emergent HR professional,” they concluded.