Alex
Blyth’s five-point plan will help you choose the accreditation that will be of
most benefit to your business
There
are so many HR accreditations out there; a sea of bewildering acronyms all
promising to make your people work harder and bring in more revenue. But how
can you ensure that getting an HR accreditation will bring benefits to your
business without wasting money and distracting staff from core tasks? This
five-point plan should help to guide the way.
1) Be clear about your objective. Common
objectives include:
– Enhance company image for external
parties such as customers and shareholders
– Improve staff morale and motivation
– Improve training and skill levels
– Increase response to recruitment
advertising
– Raise staff retention rates
– Increase productivity, sales and
profit
2) Pick an accreditation that is designed
to help achieve that objective. The following should help:
Investors
in People (IiP)
A cheap and simple way of establishing sound people management principles.
Those who have achieved accreditation report that it has primarily helped to
link training to business objectives and improve the standard of training. www.iipuk.co.uk
Sunday
Times Best Companies To Work For
An annual list ranking companies based on employees’ views; As Bill
Parsons, HR director of ARM, says: “It’s useful to see how employees view the
organisation and how you stack up against competitors. Finishing high up the
list can be motivational for staff, but bear in mind that the reverse is also
true.” www.bestcompanies.co.uk
ISO9001
This process helps organisations understand what they must do to establish
and continually improve quality customer service. Organisations are advised to use it in conjunction with IiP. www.bsi-global.com
GoodCorporation
The corporate social responsibility kitemark, covering the way in which the
organisation behaves towards staff, customers, suppliers, shareholders, the
environment, and the local community. www.goodcorporation.com
UK
Business Excellence Awards
These prestigious awards use a business excellence model to assess every
aspect of the organisation, including its HR aspects. www.quality-foundation.co.uk
3) Ensure that your organisation is
motivated towards achieving the objective.
Appoint
a ‘champion’ to lead the process, and bear in mind that assessment may well
reveal the need for further time and financial investment in HR issues. Bear in
mind the advice offered by Robert Craven, managing director of The Director’s
Centre: “If you’re not careful, your organisation can get initiative-itis. The
more initiatives you have, the less people take them seriously. Often working
towards an accreditation or award is less useful than hiring a consultant to
advise on the actual issues.”
4) Get advice.
Many
HR consultancies specialise in guiding organisations through HR accreditation
processes. For a less expensive option, local Business links aim to offer a
one-stop portal for business advice. www.businesslink.org
5) Measure impacts.
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Research
by the Institute of Directors indicates that those organisations that conduct
formal evaluation of the impact of IiP recognition are considerably more likely
to have discovered business benefits than those who made no measurement of
impacts. Not only will measurement make the process more justifiable to
management colleagues; it is also likely make the process more successful.
For
more information on the Investors in People accreditation, read ‘A worthwhile
investment?’ in this week’s Personnel Today.
