This award recognises the growing importance of quantifying the value of
human capital to enterprises. The judge looked for teams that have broken new
ground in measuring human capital return on investment in their organisations.
Entries demonstrated how the value people investments add to the business is
quantified, and how their impact on the organisation is assessed.
Category judge
Denise Kingsmill CBE is deputy chair
of the Competition Commission. She is a lawyer, specialising in industrial
relations, employment law and corporate governance. Kingsmill is a
non-executive director of Telewest Communications and the Home Office, and is
also pro-chancellor of Brunel University and deputy chair of the Design Museum.
In 2001, she headed an independent review of women’s pay and employment
reporting to the Secretary of State of the Department of Trade and Industry.
She is currently chairing the Accounting For People Task Force.
Royal Bank Of Scotland Group
The team
No in HR team 8, total number in HR 1,500
Staff responsible for 110,000
Greig Aitken Manager, HR Strategy
& Planning
Lorraine Thompson, Reward Technical Partner
Matthew Downey Consultant, HR Strategy & Planning
Anna Campbell Consultant, HR Strategy & Planning
Jan Harper Manager, Employee Corporate Initiatives
Elaine Arden Business Partner, Retail Direct
Katy Steele, Consultant, Retail Direct
Kirsty Logan Business Partner, Manufacturing
Human Capital Project Team
About the company
With more than 115,000 staff in 26 countries and staff costs in
excess of £3.9bn, the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) Group views measuring the
effectiveness of human capital and its impact on business as essential.
The challenge
– To support the organisation’s aim to become ‘the most admired
bank’ and ‘most admired employer’
– To measure the links between employee behaviour and business
results
– To measure the effectiveness of the RBS group’s offering to
staff
– To enable clear action plans to be created to improve the
effectiveness of the group’s human capital at all levels
What the company did
– Developed a human capital model to link disparate sources of
HR information
– Pooled HR information from more than 30 global systems into
one data warehouse
– Group-wide employee surveys altered to include consistent
questions
– Developed cross-functional teams to implement the programme
Benefits and achievements
– Built HR’s competence in using multiple HR data sources to
diagnose human capital issues
– Gained greater understanding of recruitment and retention
– Armed line managers with knowledge to engage staff and help
achieve overall goals
– Found demonstrable links between people and business
performance
– Gained understanding of reasons leading to employee absence
and staff turnover. A 1 per cent reduction in absence would lead to a saving of
£1.1m annually; a 1 per cent reduction in staff turnover would lead to an
annual saving of £5m
Denise Kingsmill, CBE, says:
"The RBS Group used a cross-functional team – from HR, across the group
and even external service providers. The project took the lead from the vision
of the chief executive and made a strong effort to win buy-in from business
units early on. Impressive cost-savings are promised if the lessons are put
into practice."
BUPA
The team
No in HR team 11, total number in HR 150
Staff responsible for 40,000
Amanda Barnard, HR Project Manager
Steve Mansfield, IS Project Manager
Pat McGuire, Head of HR Systems,
Barry Dyer, Director of Group Organisation Development (Sponsor),
Mike Beck, Cognos Developer,
Helen Armitage, HR Systems Administrator,
Geeta Dhami, HR Consultant SUPER-USERS
Sue Phillippou & Emma Driscoll, HR Administrator, Insurance
Jane Evans, HR Consultant, International
Jackie Smyth, HR Consultant, Hospitals,
Kim Worby, HR Assistant, Wellness,
Rachel Williams, HR Administrator, Information Systems,
Alys Dodge, Group Compensation & Benefits Analyst
HR Systems Team
About the company
Bupa has expanded rapidly over the past six years, adding care
for the elderly, childcare and international business to the range of services
it provides, including hospitals, medical insurance and health screening. Staff
numbers have quadrupled to 40,000.
The challenge
The PeopleSoft HR system used to manage employee records needed
enhancing to meet operational and strategic demands. High staff replacement and
training costs and the impact of HR metrics such as sickness absence and staff
turnover have become critical to success.
What the company did
– Documented the business’ reporting needs
– Initiated the ‘HR Cognos Reporting’ project as part of a three-year programme of e-HR
development to support HR practice
– Created a bespoke technical infrastructure and structural
data hierarchy to reflect the organisational structure
– Consulted with key operational managers
– Analysed key workforce trends
Benefits and achievements
– The combination of the technical and data infrastructure
designs means enables consistent reporting on data from independent
transactional system against a wide variety of performance indicators
– Flexible working practices and recruitment can be monitored
and evaluated
– Sickness and staff turnover between different types of
contracts can be contrasted
Denise Kingsmill, CBE, says:
"The application looks to offer some useful analyses, such as sickness or
staff turnover, and asserts that senior management now sees strategic value of
HR data. Management information is now disseminated regularly to all business
units and contributes to workforce planning and strategic exercises."
Arriva
The team
No. in HR team 12, total 127.5
Staff responsible for 30,000
Alison O’Connor, Director HR development
Lisa Calvert, HR officer
Lynn Perry, HR executive, vehicle rental
Dave Welham, HR director, trains
Julie Allan HR director, trains
Kerry Jeng, HR planning manager, Arriva Trains Northern
Mark Saxton, HR director
Sean Forster Group health, safety and environment manager
Jenifer Digby, HR executive
Anne Hughes HR manager, Passenger services
Stig Christensen, HR director, Denmark
Sjon Angenent, HR manager
Dirk Van Dijk, Head of personnel administration, Netherlands
HR Balanced Scorecard Team
About the company
Arriva has around 30,000 employees in three European countries
and encompasses Arriva buses and trains, and vehicle rentals
The challenge
To measure human capital by delivering a set of measures that
could be universally understood and implemented in three European countries
The aim
To give the company a common framework and language by which to
measure and provide evidence of the contribution that its human capital brings
to the business
What the company did
– Introduced a ‘balanced scorecard’ (BSC) tool to measure human
capital across all divisions
– Established a team of managers (including HR) across each
division to define, develop and deliver the project
– Sought advice from human capital consultant
– Exploited existing infrastructure and people resources to
avoid additional project costs
Benefits and achievements
– Can measure and improve its human capital contribution by
using HR metrics
– Absence has fallen from 5.7 per cent to 5.4 per cent in four
months, saving £1.98m
– Productivity has increased
– The company can see return on investment in an increasingly
used online learning facility
– All managers have a performance and personal development
plans ensuring greater focus on delivering against business objectives
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– Best practice is shared
Denise Kingsmill, CBE, says:
"This was a vision developed by the HR director and passed down to a
project director, who used a wide repertoire of methods to get it to stick. In
turn, it was fed back to HR’s senior management to ensure buy-in across the
organisation. HR has led by example, with its own targets."
