The pressure is on to reduce the huge debt incurred to fight the
recession and the debate on public spending cuts is raging between
the political parties on which front line services will be
maintained and which will face drastic cuts.
Councillor Alan Rudge, cabinet member for equalities and human
resources considers how local government can meet tough targets for
public sector efficiency savings and still provide service
excellence at the front line
In the current climate efficiency savings are paramount for both
public and private sector organisations and there has been much
debate in the media that 'efficiency savings' is just another term
for job cuts.
This could be no further from the truth when it comes to
managing a public sector organisation such as Birmingham City
Council that is larger than many well known UK FTSE 100 and Blue
Chip companies with 60,000 staff and a remit to provide the people
of Birmingham with the high quality effective services they require
each and every day.
Meeting the challenges of the future requires a flexible, agile
and committed workforce. It is a common held misconception that
public sector workers choose this career path for an easy life, if
this were the case then the groundbreaking changes that we have
been undertaking at Birmingham City Council would not be possible.
The truth is that a strong case of vocation with dedicated
professionalism and commitment is what drives local authority
workers to provide outstanding public service.
Birmingham has the ambition to be the best place to live, learn,
work and visit- a global city with a local heart. This ambition is
pursued very much in the spirit of Joseph Chamberlain, our city's
forefather and a truly great politician who pioneered innovation
and improvement.
The Human Resources department recognises that BCC is a service
organisation run for people by people and the key to achieving
sustainable high performance is to make each and every individual's
input count.
The leading edge people management practices that we are
developing via the Excellence in People Management (EPM) project
are now being recognised on a national scale and Human Resources
have won an unprecedented number of awards over the last twelve
months. Entries for these awards have come from both the private
and public sector proving that Birmingham City Council can compete
against top private sector companies and win.
The joint projects that we are undertaking with recognised
leading institutions also illustrates the quality of the work that
we are doing and how well it is regarded by others. The workforce
intelligence and planning team are involved in ground breaking
research that is taking place alongside private sector companies
with the Chartered Institute of Personal Development (CIPD),
University of Birmingham and Aston University. This work will
enable us to develop services, toolkits and analytical capabilities
that will help us understand the needs of present and future
workforce development.
Sixteen awards in total have been won by the Human Resources
department since Councillor Rudge took over the portfolio in 2004,
with BCC's pioneering employee engagement programme BEST winning
many of the honours and receiving three major accolades in as many
months this year.
In June they were the winner of the 'Outstanding Employee
Engagement Strategy' at the HR magazine's HR Excellence Awards and
were also awarded at the same ceremony the coveted 'HR Excellence
Gold Award' - awarded to the overall winner from the winners of the
16 category winners.
The success of the BEST programme is evident in the results of
the initiative - the part of the entry that the judges were most
impressed with. More than 75% of staff who have taken part in a
BEST workshop says that they feel more engaged and motivated. A
staff-wide weighted survey revealed the proportion of employees
'motivated' in their current role had improved from the 56% in 2006
to 83% in 2008.
A study by Kingston Business School has verified 76% of staff
are 'strongly and frequently' motivated and the number of staff
agreeing they feel proud to work for Birmingham City Council is an
impressive 90% in 2008.
Birmingham City Council were one of a handful of local
authorities or public sector organisations to win one of these
awards, the other winners included such well known private
companies as Bupa, Sainsbury's, McDonalds and Asda.
In April, the BEST programme team was announced as 'Winners' in
the Human Resources Innovation of the Year Category at the Public
Sector People Managers Association (PPMA) Awards for the innovative
approach to delivering the programme.
BEST also won the accolade for 'People and Workforce
Achievement' at the Municipal Journal (MJ) Awards in June. At the
'Midlands Excellence Awards' in January the BEST programme team
were 'Highly Commended' in the Innovation Category for their work
and delivery of the programme.
The BEST programme has most recently been shortlisted for the
Personnel Today Award for Employee Engagement and is once again
competing alongside public and private sector to win this
award.
Other HR initiatives that have won awards include the 'Advancing
Women Programme' introduced to ensure equality of opportunity for
women who wish to progress within the organisation, this programme
won the award for the 'Best Public Service Initiative' at the
Training Journal Awards ceremony this year.
The change agents programme is another innovative approach that
has been shortlisted several times including the 2009 Management
Journal Awards held in June. This flagship talent pool was
shortlisted for the CIPD Pay and Workforce Achievement Award last
year and again in the 2009 CIPD Awards in the Talent Management
category.
All of these accolades are important, not so we can indulge is
some self congratulatory back slapping or celebrate awards for
awards sake but so that the people of Birmingham can see that we
are serious about transforming and improving the quality of service
for our citizens. HR plays a vital role and supporting that process
of change and improvement that will enable us to achieve our goals
and this is even more important when we are faced with the economic
realities of the current downturn.
Engaging people's hearts and minds to harness the success that
comes from a committed and loyal workforce does not happen by
magic. We believe that it is the responsibility of the organisation
to increase and sustain motivation, job satisfaction and commitment
in order to improve performance.
Proving that you can be regarded as one of the best in your
market place is an important part of this process and that is why
we will continue to celebrate the achievements of our staff in
winning these awards and recognise it as a vital part of making
sure we are better equipped to lead the organisation and help the
council deliver Excellence.