Under the leadership of director of workforce and OD, Bev Edgar, the team has shaken off its poor reputation and totally transformed its approach to support all trust staff.

The judges were impressed by the way that they worked tirelessly to improve processes, listen to staff and provide strong leadership in good people management practice.

The new Workforce and OD team at Nuffield was established in April 2008, in a climate of high turnover, poor sickness levels and poor recruitment processes, and after a painful trust restructure. Today they have a strong reputation for delivering
support services and are able to nurture a culture of high performance and accountability within the organisation.

The team’s key achievements are;
• Rolling staff turnover – reduced by 9%
• Sickness levels – reduced to 2.9% and well below NHS average
• Reduced ‘time to hire’ from 18 to 10 weeks using improved HR processes
• Increased take up on appraisals by 35%

The team’s GREAT Leaders Programme which Q. Learning helped to design and deliver puts a strong emphasis on building relationships, handling difficult conversations and has introduced managers to coaching. The programme is the foundation of a trust–wide commitment from managers to ensure much clearer communication with staff and is reaping rewards
in the annual staff survey.

The judges agreed that the HR team at Nuffield are worthy winners, not least because of the transformation in their own and the trust’s fortunes in 12 months.

They have delivered dramatic improvements in key staffing indicators and the staff survey - but more importantly in their standing as a leading HR function. Truly inspirational work for those HR teams who feel they are struggling!