Miller Homes responded on a broad front to the onset of the Covid pandemic, redesigning work practices, addressing mental and physical health, and rethinking communications. We look at the winning entry in this keenly contested category.
WINNER
Miller Homes
Employee engagement is a key indicator of employee experience and Miller Homes is proud to have consistently received 94% scores in its employee engagement surveys, as well as attaining Gold in the Investors in People scheme. Maintaining current levels of engagement, as well as staff levels, was always going to be a challenge in 2020 but the group worked hard to reassure its workforce and foster a sense of community by truly putting its purpose and values into action.
In line with government restrictions, Miller Homes was quick to adapt, redesigning working practices and keeping communication front of mind across the entire workforce. Using its intranet, and guided by its values, chief executive Chris Endsor drove a collaborative effort supported by HR, communications, operations and safety, health & environment. They quickly developed a hybrid approach to keep staff informed of day-to-day news, as well as important updates on the financial health of the business, during a highly sensitive time.
Miller Homes’ events were reimagined for the digital world. The annual regional roadshows took place online, with each one led by Endsor, and attracting positive feedback from staff. Volunteering activities increased significantly during the year and donations were made to key charities. A new Covid-secure initiative, Miller Miles Charity Challenge, encouraged staff to stay active – supporting their physical and mental health – while also raising over £24,000 for locally nominated good causes, selected by employees. Each mile achieved was matched pound for pound by Miller Homes and over 200 staff participated.
Mental wellbeing has always been a priority for Miller Homes but it stepped up its efforts in light of Covid-19, appointing 100 mental health first aiders and running dedicated workshops on areas including stress awareness and depression. Following feedback from staff, it launched We Care, a market-leading raft of initiatives including 24/7 online GP access, mental health support service and a get-fit programme.
RUNNERS-UP
Balfour Beatty
As the infrastructure group entered 2020, it faced the challenge of keeping employees engaged and safe whether working remotely, continuing on construction sites but following strict new social distancing regulations, or on furlough leave.
In April 2020, it adapted the Four Enablers (Strategic Narrative, Engaging Managers, Employee Voice and Organisational Integrity) to give colleagues what they needed during the pandemic, being clear how it would deliver this. The approach continued to support Balfour Beatty’s values and delivered content to all employee groups with extra support for high risk groups.
The company ensured everyone had access to the latest information on Covid-19 with daily emails. To reach site-based employees, Balfour Beatty produced toolbox talks and displayed centrally messaged signage. QR codes were created which linked employees to posters, videos and podcasts, sharing safety messaging. The Balfour Beatty Academy adapted quickly by developing a webinar programme for all, including furloughed employees.
The success of the business’s revised approach to engagement and principles of care, trust, visibility, inclusion and employee voice can be seen by several measures. A wellbeing survey launched in June 2020 helped us to understand how employees were coping and the impact on engagement showed 90% of employees felt cared for, 85% felt well informed during the pandemic and 81% felt a strong connection to their team. An engagement survey in October 2020 showed fantastic engagement as our EIS score jumped 10% to 73%, higher than the past five years combined and importantly for 2020, 93% of respondents felt cared for. Key populations such as our frontline workforce saw a 12% increase in their positive emotions score to 73%, having worked in very difficult conditions on site all year.
NHS Shared Business Services (NHS SBS)
Over 200 NHS organisations are dependent on NHS Shared Business Services (NHS SBS) to pay their employees, manage their finance and IT systems, or help them purchase goods and services. Despite the vast majority of its 900-plus mainly office-based employees in the UK needing to be set up to work from home within just a two-week period at the beginning of the pandemic, NHS SBS had to ensure its services were uninterrupted – helping the NHS organisations it works alongside to focus on the clinical response to Covid-19.
As part of business continuity measures, employees who could be reassigned (and retrained as necessary) were identified. Cross-team working and prioritisation of skills was also important, particularly in the early days and weeks of the pandemic. By exhibiting strong leadership and communicating effectively with staff during a prolonged and unprecedented period of change, NHS SBS has been able to support the NHS when it has needed it most. This has meant that its teams have ensured that almost 400,000 employees across 90 different NHS organisations have continued to be paid as normal – despite having to process all 164 weekly and monthly payrolls remotely for the first time ever.
Great Place to Work found that the organisation’s overall annual score rose by six percentage points to 70%. Employees feel that culture, corporate and social responsibility, empowerment and accountability and wellbeing are particular strengths and 85% of employees understand how their job contributes to achieving organisational objectives.
Obelisk Networks
Over the past two years telecommunications business Obelisk Networks UK has significantly changed the way it operates, with superb results. It has aimed at developing an employee engagement strategy that sees employees at the heart of everything it does as a business, focusing on creating a positive working environment so its employees enjoy coming to work every day. Employee retention, brand awareness, and becoming an employer of choice were among its prime objectives.
As the HR director is a member of Obelisk’s executive team, implementation of the employee engagement strategy was supported and led right from the top. HR designed and launched a new company website with a focus on showcasing Obelisk’s employees.
This gave employees recognition while also giving potential employees an insight into what it’s like to work in Obelisk. In 2020 alone its employees referred 10 successful candidates for open roles. The website features videos, interviews and photos of Obelisk staff in action.
As a result, an employee survey showed that 94% of our employees would recommend us as an employer of choice. Improvements were also made in remuneration and now employees are are more satisfied with pay and benefits as the remuneration structure is more aligned to employee needs. Obelisk are an accredited Living Wage Employer.
Having a more engaged workforce led to improved customer satisfaction which in turn positively impacted Obelisk’s business with a 14% increase in customer satisfaction and a net promoter score among customers of 75%.
Porterbrook
Porterbrook is a rolling stock asset management company that has more than 4,000 vehicles on lease to the train operating companies (TOCs) across the UK. The business has undergone a transformational change in the last three years, following the appointment of a new chief executive officer, Mary Grant, in September 2017.
The HR function has been central to the change. When the CEO joined the organisation the business did not have the skill sets to move the business forward and faced significant market challenges with fleets coming off lease but which were not life expired. There was no mission, vision and values statement and the organisation did not have a high-profile reputation within the rail industry. Customer confidence was low, with a survey finding that the net promoter score was -19.
Mary quickly identified that HR Manager Kate North had the capability to drive forward a sophisticated programme to support a new people strategy for the business. An external consultant was engaged to support the change plan, and Fiona Irvine from Rainbow HR worked in close collaboration with Kate and her team. A structured process was used to develop the HR strategy starting with a detailed diagnostic to understand the business and ensuring the strategy supported the five-year business plan developed by the senior leadership team in early 2018.
Fiona took a coaching approach to ensure that Kate and her team were able to drive and own the delivery of the plan. The team used the Investors in People framework with initiatives aligned to each of the nine areas of the framework. Over a three year period new values have been deeply embedded via vision and values workshops; high levels of staff participation in the changes included focus groups and small working groups focusing on key areas such as reward and recognition, ensuring the initiatives were relevant; a strong internal communications plan was implemented; and a Inspired Leadership programme launched. A full health and wellbeing campaign was put in place, which was adapted for lockdown and has high levels of staff participation.
The results have seen Porterbrook enter a new phase of growth and evolution as a business which combines the legacy of 25 years of expertise in the UK railway alongside a new vision to meet the needs of a changing rail industry landscape. The business retained 93% of staff (2020) and 96% of staff agree that Porterbrook is a great place to work (2020).
TMF Group in partnership with Culture Amp
TMF Group is a leading provider of compliance and administrative services, with a presence stretching across 85 countries.
Colleague engagement is seen as one of the main drivers of TMF’s business transition and is an important pillar to fuel the continuous improvement culture that TMF is building upon. TMF was also mindful that there is a strong correlation between engaged employees with higher levels of wellbeing, and business attributes such as: quality of service, client satisfaction, productivity, an enhanced employer brand, the latter allowing for better attraction and retention of talent.
TMF recognised it suffered from high voluntary turnover among staff in some locations, which affected customer satisfaction and retention as well as financial performance. In one extreme case, in one office there were new hires that, after their first morning in the office, did not turn up to work again after lunch.
The solution saw TMF implement Culture Amp’s employment experience platform to gain a deeper understanding of the drivers of employee engagement within TMF. The data is being used to set up specific actions to increase engagement in the company overall, and to address issues around staff retention. Using Culture Amp to connect with employees has led to significant changes at TMF, with people feeling they are being listened to and correspondingly higher levels of engagement.
FeedForward committees and workstreams, which helped drive engagement, played key roles in implementing initiatives and monitoring progress. Senior leaders from the region and respective country come together every 8 to 12 weeks with HR specialists using the HR analytics to reveal potential root causes and to fuel the discussion on their local specific people challenges.
The feedback of employees enabled TMF to create the correct response to the Covid-19 crisis and the aftermath. During the Covid crisis, TMF used daily surveys to check-in with employees as to their wellbeing and if there were any logistical issues working from home.
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The issue of under-performing countries has been tackled, with a spectacular improvement in both staff retention and employee engagement, in addition to improved business results. For example, in one of the nine lower performing countries, voluntary staff attrition has dropped by 49% in just one year.
In high priority countries which showed lower engagement and high voluntary attrition, improvements on engagement were mainly within the 12 to 30% range with an exceptional high of 67% as highest improvement. Voluntary staff attrition decreased double digit in the range of 30% to 70% with only one country improving a mere 5%.
