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Employee engagementHR transformationTalent managementPersonnel Today Awards

Personnel Today Awards 2014 winners: Purple Cubed wins first ever HR Supplier Partnership

by Jo Faragher 3 Dec 2014
by Jo Faragher 3 Dec 2014 Purple Cubed collect the first ever Supplier Partnership Award at the 2014 ceremony
Purple Cubed collect the first ever Supplier Partnership Award at the 2014 ceremony

Purple Cubed walked away with the inaugural HR Supplier Partnership prize at the Personnel Today Awards 2014 last month. The London-based consultancy’s entry is showcased below, along with those of the rest of the shortlist. The new category recognises the achievements of suppliers of products and services in relation to an HR client.

HR supplier partnership – judges

Rob Moss, editor, Personnel Today

Richard Andrews, website director, XpertHR Group


WINNER: Purple Cubed (nominated by Village Urban Resorts and De Vere Hotels)

About the organisation
Purple Cubed is a consulting company specialising in improving employee engagement, company performance and profit. Its clients include exclusive hospitality businesses and luxury retailers, such as the Dorchester Collection and Tragus Group.

The challenge

De Vere had previously placed little focus on, and made minimal investment in, its people. The arrival of a new human resources director led to the creation of a strategic people plan, aimed at raising engagement and improving performance. Purple Cubed supported the company to create a new employer brand, V Happy People.

What the organisation did

  • Designed and implemented a bespoke communications dashboard to engage candidates during recruitment process.
  • Helped to introduce five high-performance values, which are used as core performance measures.
  • Facilitated senior management sessions to communicate the new brand.
  • Built new online communications hub with in-built performance reviews and employee opinions.
  • Designed bespoke “talent toolbox” aligned to the company’s KPIs. This also automates induction, performance, exit and employee opinion processes and reports on them.

Benefits and achievements

  • Sixteen per cent increase in quality applications to the company.
  • Employee engagement across the business has increased to 86% (up 15%).
  • Recruitment spend has decreased by 80%, saving £400,000 per year.
  • Top performers identified as being “at risk of leaving” have been retained.
  • Labour turnover has reduced from 57% to 24%.
  • Customers spend £15 more per room, on average.
  • Created robust talent pipeline: out of 24 “rising stars”, eight are now general managers, three are deputy general managers and one is a sales manager.

Other customer successes

  • Created online talent system for the Dorchester Collection.
  • Developed performance management system for the restaurant group Tragus.

Customer testimonial
“With the introduction of the [Your Future] system, we believe we are stronger, have clearer knowledge around our people and succession planning and can really make a difference in how we develop our teams.”

Eugenio Pirri, vice president of people and organisational development, Dorchester Collection


RUNNERS-UP

Saville Consulting (nominated by Jaguar Land Rover)

About the organisation
Saville Consulting is an international psychometric assessment business founded in 2004 by Professor Peter Saville, who also founded SHL Group. It helps organisations identify and develop talented individuals and teams, and its customers include BP, Siemens and Vodafone.

The challenge
In the past five years, Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) has experienced huge domestic and international success, but this has placed demands on its recruitment and talent functions to attract, identify and select the best people in a competitive sector.

What the organisation did

  • Developed bespoke automated graduate assessments for all eight JLR graduate programmes.
  • Created situational judgement tests for more than 110,000 applicants for manufacturing roles in the Solihull plant.
  • Designed and deployed a tailored assessment suite to recruit more than 3,500 production employees.
  • Trialled, developed and deployed specific cognitive tests to assess apprentice applicants, including the UK’s first multimedia assessment for apprentice candidates.
  • Worked with international recruitment partners to embed assessments globally.

Benefits and achievements

  • Assessment methodologies have been able to scale with the demands of the business.
  • Volume recruitment is tailored, but supports the JLR employer brand.
  • Graduate screening time is down from 13 to 1.5 minutes per candidate.
  • Graduate assessment time reduced from 35 minutes to 18 minutes per candidate.
  • Cost per screen decreased from £13 per candidate to just £2.30.
  • Candidate withdrawal rates down from 29% to 8%, and has seen an improved quality going into next stage.

Other customer successes

  • Improving senior-level assessment at Prudential.
  • Helping to embed organisational values at Nestle.
  • Talent pooling and job streaming for RBS/Direct Line.
  • Internationalising graduate recruitment at EY.

Customer testimonial

“We have worked in partnership with Saville Consulting to push the boundaries of innovation with our assessment processes.”

 Robinder Gill, head of graduate, undergraduate and apprentice recruitment, Jaguar Land Rover


Mind Gym (nominated by Unilever)

About the organisation

Mind Gym is used by 61% of FTSE 100 companies and by more than half of the US Standard and Poor’s 100 companies. Its “bite-size” training helps employers build a high-performance culture, deliver productivity gains, or improve employee engagement.

The challenge

Unilever CEO Paul Polman wants to double revenues, while reducing environmental impact, by 2020. Line manager capability was identified as a key area for improvement if the company was to achieve this goal. This led to the development of the Unilever Management Development Programme (UMDP).

What the organisation did

  • Designed a global programme of distributed learning without participants having to travel regularly.
  • Programme comprised a three-day face-to-face programme, with three additional “virtual” sessions.
  • Brought together seven different development programmes to become one global initiative.
  • Rolled this out to 15,500 supervisors, first and second line managers.

Benefits and achievements

  • Significant cost savings.
  • All participants learned new knowledge and skills from attending the Explore programme; 82.5% said it has had a positive impact on how they work with others.
  • Delegate feedback: “I have focused more on building relationships and trust”.

Other customer successes

  • Revitalised performance culture at Starbucks.
  • Trained 7,000 managers at Thomson Reuters to have better performance conversations.
  • Transformed customer service in Santander branches.
  • First Group: high performance culture programme for 4,000 managers.
  • Civil service learning: implemented a change management programme.

Customer testimonial 
“Mind Gym are experts in transformation and change working at the individual, team and organisational level.”

Sarah Leonard, vice president and head of organisational development, GlaxoSmithKline


AXA PPP healthcare (nominated by Arup)

About the organisation
AXA PPP healthcare is one of the largest and most experienced private medical insurance providers in the UK. Customers benefit from a network of more than 250 hospitals and almost 400 scanning centres. It is part of the AXA Group.

The challenge
Arup had some health and wellbeing programmes in place, but health assessment use was low and only reached a small segment of the employee population. Added to this, it needed to ensure that staff had access to wellbeing support from any location.

What the organisation did

  • Joined-up communication, so that staff only have to call one number regardless of health and wellbeing service needed.
  • Integrated Arup’s compliance medicals and international travel into AXA occupational health services.
  • Developed Wellness Intelligence Dashboard, giving Arup a single view of health and wellbeing spend (including data from other providers).
  • Employed a chief medical officer to advise Arup on policy.

Benefits and achievements

  • Clearly see key health risks and receive recommendations for future wellbeing strategy.
  • Two-thirds of staff have registered for wellbeing platform.
  • Delivery of four health campaigns has been achieved.
  • Improved communications mean health and wellbeing initiatives reach a wider and younger demographic.

Other customer successes

  • PMI product called the Healthcare Pathway for Capita.
  • Employee engagement and wellbeing consulting for States of Jersey.
  • Occupational health service for KPMG.
  • Wellbeing programme with Bank of England.

Customer testimonial 
“Our HR function has found the new Management Advice Report template tremendously helpful in dealing with cases.”

Sara Turner, UK head of employee benefits and wellbeing, KPMG


Impact International (nominated by Lend Lease)

About the organisation

Impact International is a global leader in leadership development and business transformation. It was established in 1980 and now has 18 offices, offering a range of learning methodologies.

The challenge

Lend Lease launched its Springboard development programme in 1998, and decided to bring Impact on board in 2008 to drive a review of how it worked and improve community and participant engagement.

What the organisation did

  • Extensively reviewed the existing Springboard programme over period of six months.
  • Decided to redevelop the programme to incorporate health and wellbeing, personal development and community involvement.
  • Used strengths-based development to help employees appreciate their own strengths and drive up engagement.
  • Used storytelling to improve the learning journey for participants.

Benefits and achievements

  • More than 1,500 people have been through the programme since 2008.
  • Participants are 13% more committed to Lend Lease.
  • Employees’ view of the organisation has been improved by 19%.
  • Springboard delegates undertook 3,000 days’ work in the community and completed 41 sustainable community projects.

Other customer successes

  • “Squared” programme at Google Digital Academy.
  • Graduate programme at ScottishPower.
  • Talent development programme at Thomson Reuters.

Customer testimonial 

“We continue to work with Impact because their programmes have consistently delivered great results and facilitated significant change in our business.”

Roy White, vice president of HR, Sony 


Fuel Learning (nominated by Norbert Dentressangle)

About the organisation

Fuel Learning provides both bespoke and off-the-peg learning and development programmes. These include “bite-size”, tool-based programmes, impact-focused initiatives and leadership development.

The challenge
Norbert Dentressangle is the second largest logistics and supply chain operator in Europe, and has enjoyed 111% revenue growth over the past four years. It needed to ensure that, during this rapid growth, it maintained its great reputation for manager development.

What the organisation did

  • Built online participant portal to manage learning programmes.
  • Delivered range of interventions to more than 3,500 participants, from first line manager to executive board.
  • More than 1,500 people have completed two cycles of the 360-feedback process.

Benefits and achievements

  • All of those who have been through 360-feedback process have measured positive improvements.
  • Almost all (96%) say they use the learning tools in everyday situations.
  • Ninety-eight percent say it has improved their management capability.
  • Majority (97%) would recommend the programmes to others.

Other customer successes

  • Major learning interventions at Co-op, ASOS and Marks & Spencer.
  • Leadership development at Digicel.

Customer testimonial 

“Fuel Learning were both professional and brought a sense of humour to their work. They are hugely passionate about providing the best service and most relevant client specific outcomes they can.”

Rachel Shadwell-Gibney, head of learning, culture and engagement at Digicel


QA (nominated by Leeds City Council)

About the organisation
QA provides more than 1,500 training courses – everything from Microsoft Office to management and leadership courses. The company has more than 20 centres nationwide and works across both the private and public sector.

The challenge
In 2010, the HR team at Leeds City Council embarked on a programme of change to become a more enterprising and efficient organisation, and to deliver services in line with their vision to be the “best council in the best city”.  Part of its remit was to improve all aspects of learning.

What the organisation did

  • Provided a learning management system, with a performance module where appraisals can be completed and recorded.
  • Created e-learning tools to assist with skills and techniques required for appraisals.
  • Implemented half-day workshops on appraisal skills and positive management conversations.
  • Aimed programme at transforming manager habits to drive cultural change, including large scale auditorium events.
  • Introduced team challenge activities aimed at improving end service to citizens.

Benefits and achievements

  • Appraisal completion rate up from 65% to 98%.
  • Top three performing areas in 2013 employee engagement survey were related to appraisals and learning.
  • HR team nominated for team of the year in internal awards for excellence.
  • Managers have better understanding of their role – 98% state that they are clearer on habits they need to improve.

Other customer successes

  • Training programme for newly launched Tech Partnership Training fund.
  • QA Gateway programme designed to boost graduate employability.
  • Delivery of Amazon web services training in the UK.

Customer testimonial

“Working in partnership with QA has strengthened the learning we can offer our 15,000+ employees, which is crucial at a time of real change for our organisation and local government.”

Graham Sephton, senior HR business partner, Leeds City Council


Validium (nominated by Norfolk County Council)

About the organisation

The Validium Group is an employee assistance and wellbeing provider. It works in partnership with HR and occupational health professionals to prevent and overcome stress, trauma and absence issues that can limit the ability of people to perform.

The challenge

In 2010, the council was aware that stress, anxiety and depression accounted for one-third of all illness. It was concerned that employees would only use an employee assistance programme (EAP) if they were already in crisis, so decided to take an approach of “prevention is better than cure”.

What the organisation did

  • Worked in partnership with the council to increase use of its EAP through better communication.
  • Worked with HR department to identify 15 staff who might benefit from a psychological assessment.
  • Six of these staff had been off work for between three and 52 weeks, the others had been at work but were around 25% to 30% less productive.

Benefits and achievements

  • Use of EAP at Norfolk has tripled from just 3% to 9%.
  • Insights from psychological assessments have helped identify key workplace issues and affected staff are now performing to full potential.
  • Validium’s employee support helplines tend to be used by around 20% of the workforce, compared with average industry rate of around 10%.
  • Validium provides clients with a return of £4 for every £1 invested in its services.

Other customer successes

  • Improvements in employees’ emotional and physical health at Amey.
  • Practical and emotional support for staff at Royal College of Nursing.
  • Improved rehabilitation times at Zurich Insurance.
  • High-level trend data and occupational health services for British Gas.

Customer testimonial

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“Even when you compare everything else the market has to offer, the wellbeing services provided by Validium are still the most comprehensive, best quality and best value for money.”

Harvie Hughes, Occupational Health, Nationwide

Jo Faragher

Jo Faragher has been an employment and business journalist for 20 years. She regularly contributes to Personnel Today and writes features for a number of national business and membership magazines. Jo is also the author of 'Good Work, Great Technology', published in 2022 by Clink Street Publishing, charting the relationship between effective workplace technology and productive and happy employees. She won the Willis Towers Watson HR journalist of the year award in 2015 and has been highly commended twice.

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1 comment

Mirella Eickhof 12 Nov 2014 - 3:44 pm

Thats why we are proud to be the International Partner of Saville Consulting in The Netherlands. Good job Peter and team ! See number 1 and be number 1. Congratulations.

Comments are closed.

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