Each year, thousands of companies are recognised by Investors in People but the initiative is about to change. Kate Sole, programmes manager at the GTA University Centre, which is the island’s Investors in People accredited co-ordinator, explains more.
The theory that underpins the highly successful IIP initiative is simple: good people make great businesses. Investors in People (IIP) is a management framework for high performance by championing best practice in people management. Paul Devoy, head of IIP, sums it up by saying ‘Put your people at the heart of your vision and they’ll use their talents to achieve it’.
That focus on how the wellbeing of employees influences the success of any organisation isn’t changing but there is a new approach, which will be available in Guernsey from 1 September 2015. The new sixth generation IIP framework will no longer focus on processes, policies or paperwork but will simply look for the ingredients of organisations that consistently outperform their peers. The standard reflects on leading workplace trends and has been developed to describe the capabilities that organisations need to succeed, and identify the simple steps needed to achieve excellence.
The framework contains nine indicators that put management excellence at the heart of any organisation. Developed in partnership with accredited organisations, academics and market leaders, the framework clearly sets out the features of high performance and achieving accreditation is independent recognition that an organisation is a truly great place to work at.
The nine indicators are:
- Leading and inspiring people
- Living the organisation’s values and behaviours
- Empowering and involving people
- Managing performance
- Recognising and rewarding high performance
- Structuring work
- Building capability
- Delivering continuous improvement
- Creating sustainable success
The framework will allow organisations to explore the online self-assessment and resources and then work with a practitioner to outline their organisational ambition, which will be used as guide throughout accreditation. As part of the process, employees will complete a survey and the key themes that emerge from this will be further investigated through face-to-face meetings and observations. The main drive will be to identify strengths and opportunities for improvement and to find an organisation’s award level and benchmark performance.
To coincide with the launch of the sixth generation IIP framework, two additional awards are being launched by IIP – the Health and Wellbeing award and Measuring and Metrics award.
Numerous studies have found that health and happy staff are more engaged, motivated and productive, yet in 2014, a survey carried out by IIP found that over half (54%) of full-time employees felt that their employer didn’t care about their health and wellbeing, with 48% saying that this led to them feeling less motivated at work.
Physical wellbeing, psychological wellbeing and social wellbeing are at the heart of the Health and Wellbeing award. Each is a building block to a sustainable performance for any organisation. Through this award, assessment against each theme will provide a comprehensive picture of how embedded wellbeing practices are within any organisation and how this leads to sustainable performance for the future.
Measuring and Metrics is a new award. Measurement is increasingly important in business. IIP has seen through developing the sixth generation that outperforming organisation measure more. They use knowledge to make better informed decisions and they validate and prove their decisions by measuring outcome data. The Measuring and Metrics award will challenge organisations to deploy measures around the nine indicators of the sixth generation standard.
Having companies that put their people at the heart of what they do will be critical to the continued success of Guernsey and so to ensure that more and more organisations are encouraged to focus on their people management, the GTA has appointed a new IIP development consultant.
In her new role, Janine Lane will be responsible for looking at developing IIP on island and promoting it to organisations of all sizes and in all sectors. Her role will include liaising with interested clients, hosting events, improving the promotion and supporting new and existing clients.
For further information on IIP please contact Kate Sole at the GTA on 746888 or [email protected].