The human resources (HR) director for homeless charity Broadway has been awarded an MBE in the New Year’s Honours list, in recognition for services to homeless people in London.
Helen Giles, who won Personnel Today’s ‘Best Company to Work in HR’ and ‘Best HR Strategy in Line with Business’ in 2007, has been recognised for her efforts in promoting the development of people management best practice in the not-for-profit sector.
Giles and her team designed and delivered Beyond A Helpline, a ground-breaking HR support service to other homelessness agencies and ‘Leading Places of Change’, the first postgraduate management development programme and qualification specifically focused on the homelessness sector.
She recognised the main barrier to quality services for homeless people has been the lack of access to knowledge and support in the effective recruitment, management and development of staff working with clients.
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“For too long the sector has relied on the idea that the positive motivation of people wanting to work in homeless charities is a substitute for effective people management,” Giles said.
Giles joined Broadway in 1986 as an administrator and was appointed HR director 10 years later. She achieved a place in the much-coveted Sunday Times ‘100 Best Small Companies’ and was one of very few charity HR professionals to be listed in HR Magazine’s ‘Top 100 Most Influential’ in 2007.
