News
The Royal Star & Garter Homes receive first award
13 April 2015 – Agenda Consulting, a research consultancy specialising in the not-for-profit sector, has launched an ‘Employee Engagement Award’ to recognise clients who have demonstrated high levels of employee engagement.
To qualify for an award, organisations will have participated in an Agenda Consulting Employee Engagement Survey. They will have achieved a response rate of 50%, and 80% of respondents will have agreed or strongly agreed with the statement “I would wholeheartedly recommend this organisation as a good place to work”, signifying very high employee engagement.
Roger Parry, Director of Agenda Consulting said: “Our new award will recognise our clients that have demonstrated outstanding practice in employee engagement in the not-for-profit sector. Increasingly, not-for-profit organisations are surveying their staff and volunteers to measure their engagement and identify areas for improvement.
“An engaged workforce will deliver many benefits to an organisation including higher retention levels, reduced absenteeism and higher individual performance and we believe it’s important to highlight organisations that are doing it really well.”
The Royal Star & Garter Homes, a charity that provides nursing and therapeutic care to the ex-Service community, is the first recipient of the award. The Charity has been through a sustained period of change over the past ten years, including moving from one single care facility to new cutting edge homes.
Siobhan Creighton, Director of HR at The Royal Star & Garter Homes said: “The strategic transition was only possible with the support and dedication of staff across all disciplines and their commitment to employee engagement.
Key to success was focusing on three key elements of ‘engagement’: communicate the big picture and everyone’s part in the plan; make the time to consider people’s views and concerns; and treat people as you would wish to be treated. As Mangers, we also developed this ethos through leading by example.”
To monitor staff engagement the Charity has been using staff surveys, which until recently were paper based. This year it partnered with Agenda Consulting to run its first ever online survey. The management team played a pivotal role in ‘active encouragement’ to ensure high participation levels as they wanted to find out how everyone felt so they could address any issues and make changes in response to people’s views.
Siobhan added, “We are delighted with the survey results. We are committed to making positive changes where areas of improvement were identified. Our engagement result really demonstrates that staff want to tell us how they feel and they trust that we will act on the results. We are really pleased to receive this award and want to thank everyone who participated”.
As recipient of the award, The Royal Star & Garter Homes will receive a trophy, an Agenda Consulting Employee Engagement Award logo which can used for marketing and to support recruitment, plus a listing in the awards section of Agenda Consulting’s website.
For more information about Employee Engagement Surveys visit: agendaconsult.wpengine.com
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For more information contact:
Kathryn Hughes, Kayak PR on: 0208 549 3879/07801 823 839
Kathryn@kayakpr.co.uk
About Agenda Consulting
Agenda Consulting is an Oxford based research consultancy specialising in the not-for-profit sector with clients including international NGOs, hospices, social care organisations and charities.
In the last 10 years, Agenda has run more than 150 employee and volunteer surveys with over 100 organisations. Working with partners, it also conducts regular HR, workforce and volunteer management benchmarking studies which allow organisations to compare themselves on key metrics with similar organisations.
Agenda Consulting runs a number of annual events for the sector, including conferences, webinars, and product training which demonstrate best practices and discuss key issues around employee engagement. The events provide a forum for like-minded organisations to share ideas and network.
The company also provides consultancy on a variety of HR issues and helps its Third Sector clients develop their people management strategies and processes.
About The Royal Star & Garter Homes
The Royal Star & Garter Homes is a charity founded in 1916 to care for the severely injured young men returning from the battlegrounds of the First World War. Today we provide excellent care to the whole military family in our friendly, modern and comfortable Homes. Disabled ex-Service men and women, and their partners, can all benefit from our pioneering approach to nursing and therapeutic care.
We are proud to have enjoyed Royal patronage since our foundation, including that of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II from 1953 to the present day.
Anyone who is physically disabled or incapacitated and has served in Her Majesty’s Forces is eligible to apply for a place in a Royal Star & Garter Home, as well as the widows and partners of ex-Service people.
We are in the process of building new Homes around the country to provide nursing care for disabled ex-Service people in the best modern surroundings, including specialist dementia care facilities to address this growing need. The first of these prestigious new Homes opened in Solihull, the West Midlands, in the autumn of 2008 and has already established itself as a centre of excellence, achieving a Kitemark Level 1 from Dementia Care Matters in autumn 2014. The state-of-the-art facilities at Solihull have been emulated at a second new Home in Surbiton, Surrey, which opened in August 2013 and which will also enable the Charity to offer interim care for young disabled Service personnel. Following the successes of the first two Homes, a third Home in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, is being planned.
Twitter: @starandgarter
Facebook: facebook.com/starandgarter
Website: www.starandgarter.org
