Excellence in Public Service HR Award 2023 goes to AuditOne

Not-for-profit consortium AuditOne’s organisational development work impressed our judges and secured it the Excellence in Public Service HR award at the 2023 Personnel Today Awards, sponsored by Oracle.

Our judges described the nine-month programme, which has increased productivity and significantly improved the delivery of public services, as truly innovative. We take a look at its entry in more depth and celebrate the other organisations that made it to the final.

WINNNER

AuditOne

In 2016, AuditOne was created as the combination of four legacy NHS organisations. It is a not-for-profit consortium based in the north east of England, providing internal audit, counter-fraud and technology risk assurance to more than 50 NHS organisations. However, each legacy organisation brought with it its own identity, methodologies and sense of loyalty, which in turn created low employee morale and engagement.

AuditOne’s senior leadership team came together with the organisational development team, Trust Innovation Team and its host NHS organisation to discuss the challenges and how to address them. Data such as high sickness levels, exit feedback and information from trade unions helped to identify the issues impacting people and the business, and the organisation came up with a targeted nine-month organisational development programme called One+. The programme had six aims: to explore collective leadership; launch a values and behaviours framework; develop leaders with impact; improve communication and engagement; review business processes; and focus on continuous improvement.

Twelve events embraced these themes and drew support from members of the senior leadership team, and separate workstreams emerged to address the issues. The programme has had a significant impact, with one employee saying “it feels like we have finally put the One in AuditOne”. There are reduced levels of absence, a significant reduction in stress risk assessments, an improvement in staff engagement and no active issues recorded with trade unions or AuditOne’s freedom to speak up guardians in the 12 months following launch.

RUNNERS-UP

South Kesteven District Council

Eighteen months ago, South Kesteven District Council was experiencing low levels of employee engagement. Staff were tired after the pandemic, many were still working from home, new starters had not met colleagues face to face and when they did come into the office often had to be segregated. The council needed to build a strong organisational culture that aligned with its values and brought people together.

In 2022 it set up an employee representative group called the People Panel, which meets regularly and is the main mechanism for employee voice. In January 2023, the council moved into new offices with pods and breakout areas that foster collaboration. It also refreshed its corporate values after seeking feedback from more than 200 employees.

A new recognition strategy, TeamSK, has attracted more than 500 nominations from colleagues thanking co-workers for their efforts since it launched. All nominations are published and winners get an extra day’s annual leave. The council also designed thank you cards for senior leaders and councillors to show their appreciation to employees personally. Other initiatives include wellbeing challenges, a parents’ forum, mental health first aid and a menopause cafe.

Compliance standards were previously at 0, and this has since improved to 6 (out of 8). Customer calls answered have increased from 55% of calls to 93.4% of calls. Average time of complaints being open was 77 days in April 2022, and in March 2023, average days of complaints being open was 9. The number of colleagues who said they would recommend working for the council has increased by more than 18%.

Southern Health and Social Care Trust in Partnership with HealthSectorTalent

According to the King’s Fund, there were 165,000 social care vacancies in the UK in 2022, up 50% compared to 2021. Domiciliary care is a critical staff group in the NHS and plays an important role in patient flow from hospitals and in preventing further admissions by providing high quality care. In May 2023, Southern Health and Social Care Trust in Northern Ireland had approximately 600 care packages outstanding, each representing a patient and hospital bed.

It needed to recruit at scale and pace, identifying that the traditional routes through NI’s health and care system did not always suit the applicant group because they took too long. It partnered with HealthSector Talent on a project where it would host three large-scale recruitment open days over two months. The idea was to be a one-stop shop so candidates could walk into the events and complete all stages of the process from application to pre-employment checks and mandatory training. All stakeholders were engaged in making the event a success, from facilities management to occupational health practitioners who would manage health assessments.

The result was improved efficiency, enhanced creativity, increased motivation and better outcomes. A record number (302) of applications were received and 162 candidates attended one of the three events, a 700% increase on previous months using traditional recruitment approaches. Of those that attended, 157 received conditional offers, a 97% success rate, and 116 candidates were converted into hires. Candidate engagement also improved, with time to hire reduced by 13 days. Reliance on agency staff is down and cost per hire significantly decreased.

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