Engagement; Awards and Absence Management
Lisa Murphy FCIPD
Multi-award winning HR & Learning solutions | HR Consultant | People Development | DiSC | Employment Law | Speaker | HR Project Support | Entrepreneur | Business Owner ?
Fircroft College has enjoyed some amazing achievements this year, not least our student satisfaction rating which is now the highest in the country! And for the HR team our successes just keep coming, finalists in the CIPD and HR Excellence awards; unprecedented increases in our engagement survey results with 96% of employees now satisfied with our culture; Investors in People Gold standard accreditation and recently our absence statistics showing huge improvements and a 75% reduction in costs.
Lots of people have asked what kind of things we’ve been doing to get these great results. I’m not an expert and I think different things will work for different workplaces but I’m happy to share what I think have been the key areas that have helped with our success.
I have way too much to say on this issue for one article so this is the first of a series of short blogs that will focus on 'proactive HR and some of the areas I think have led to this success. Working in education, we love a model! So I've put the below together to explain what I mean by 'proactive HR' and to show the areas I feel are vital if you are looking increase engagement and therefore reduce absence.
The changes that we’ve made have diverted our attention from being reactive to being proactive. It is in the proactive phase that you decide the culture; if you get this right then you’ll avoid a good amount of the issues in the reactive phase including low levels of engagement, high levels of absence, people feeling aggrieved and all the other issues that come when people are not engaged or enjoying what they do. I don’t feel there’s a magic bullet for increasing engagement and reducing absence but I do think focusing energy on the areas above is a great starting point to getting the culture right and therefore reducing issues and costs.
In the next blog I’ll talk in more detail about our communication strategy; this includes our consultation mechanisms; how we set up our employee voice team and how this is managed successfully to become the hub of engagement in our college and how our infrastructure supports communication at all levels.
Thanks! Lisa
HR and L&D Partner providing 10 years of Parental Leave Coaching | Bereavement Support | Trauma Support | Line-Manager Training Provider
6 年An interesting read.
Engage for Success Steering Group Member
6 年Many thanks Lisa, on holidays at moment but will get back to you by the end of the month
Neurodiversity ?? Coaching | Training & HR Consultancy | Speaker ?? Neurodiversity is a Strength ?? Not a Weakness - I Help You Realise That! DM Me To Chat ??
6 年Hi Lisa Tomlinson, thanks for sharing. We're working on similar cultural changes ourselves. Love your HR model. Be great to chat with you some more about how you're creating a learning environment within the College.
Independent Business Consultant
6 年Great first blog! I'm a firm believer of clear communication both ways will ensure better engaged staff! Being proactive also shows that you really care about what they think, how they are developed in the business and that ultimately, that you want them to stay!