Pictured above: Melanie Wood, H.R business partner
(workforce intelligence and planning) with Councillor Rudge -
Cabinet Member for Equalities and Human Resources at Birmingham
City Council, with the rest of the winning team
Birmingham City Council has won a major national HR award adding
another accolade for excellence in HR across the private and public
sector.
In the Public Sector People Managers' Association HR Awards 2010
Birmingham City Council was presented with the HR Efficiency and
Business Impact Award for its innovative Workforce Intelligence and
Planning (WIP) programme.
WIP brings together workforce planning, talent management and
business intelligence and has helped improve Council's ability to
manage its workforce effectively. The programme brings together
business strategy and people management allowing the Council to
more accurately evaluate the workforce impact and contribution. It
is critical to its Excellence in People Programme - launched in
2006 and represents the most comprehensive overhaul of HR strategy
in local government history.
Implementing WIP has resulted in direct, positive influences on
resident services, especially the Short Breaks for Disabled
Children Project, which secured £1million of funding from the
Department for Children, Schools and Families to develop the
initiative and launch new short breaks services, and the Children's
Social Care Supply Analysis Project.
Councillor Alan Rudge, Cabinet Member for Equalities and Human
Resources at Birmingham City Council, says: "I am delighted that
the hard work put in by our HR team, led by the Director of HR and
Equalities, Andy Albon, to develop an initiative which has enabled
us to better predict and plan our workforce needs has been
recognised with yet another PPMA Award.
"In the 2009/2010 financial year Workforce Intelligence and
Planning enabled Birmingham City Council to reduce its reliance on
agency staff by some 32%, delivering a £3million cost
reduction, and as the initiative develops we are looking at a
sustainable saving of £7million a year."
The HR Awards celebrated excellence in nine categories and were
an integral part of the PPMA's national conference which was held
at the Hilton London Metropole Hotel.
Councillor Rudge adds: "It was an honour to accept this award on
behalf of the Birmingham City Council HR department, which has not
only delivered major cost reductions through WIP, but has also set
up talent management training schemes for 500 managers and created
a comprehensive framework for future workforce planning that will
improve performance and productivity across the Council's 39,000
full time equivalent employees."
The PPMA's HR Efficiency and Business Impact Award is the latest
in a series of major HR awards that Birmingham City Council has
won. Six major HR awards were won last year and the HR team has
just been shortlisted as a finalist in the 2010 MJ awards, for the
People & Workforce Development Achievement of the Year
Award.