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Overview

Places for People is one of the largest property management and development companies in the UK, helping to create sustainable communities and affordable housing that meets a range of different social needs.

In 2007, Places for People underwent a restructuring process, in order to align performance standards across the organisation. The HR department knew that employee engagement was key to ensuring everyone was working towards the same business objectives. Places for People also wanted employees to have access to key equality and diversity information, as this is a strategic focus for the organisation.

Why GoodPractice?

GoodPractice was recommended to Places for People by a colleague who had used a GoodPractice toolkit in a previous organisation. The significant benefits were:

• the toolkit’s ease of use
• the customisation potential
• the cost-effectiveness

What solution was provided?

GoodPractice worked with Places for People to provide a bespoke solution to help engage and empower its employees. The Places for People Knowhow toolkit was designed based on the GoodPractice Toolkit for Managers, with customised features including:

• an area devoted to equality and diversity, with information about latest issues, conference details and training    courses
• a trainers’ toolbox that offers advice, tools and templates to help Places for People create its own training materials and learning and development solutions
• a forum facility to encourage the sharing of ideas, knowledge and best practice on key issues and initiatives within Places for People

The outcomes

Places for People is able to encourage employees to use the toolkit instead of immediately requesting a specific course. The toolkit helps employees become more self-directed and enables Places for People to structure employees’ development through some self-paced learning.

Places for People has promoted the toolkit as an essential resource to ensure the organisation works toward the aligned, consistent high performance standards. As a result, employee feedback on the toolkit has been very positive, and the usage has been phenomenal – with an average of over 700 employees accessing the resources every month.

Two recent examples of how the toolkit is supporting Places for People employees at various levels of the business are:

• the use of our Project Management tools to help an employee deliver a major new project
• use of our Communication resources to assist an employee with report writing and minute-taking

Usage is driven by ongoing promotion of the toolkit through the Places for People intranet site, and through the addition of ‘Hot Topics’ within the staff newsletter. The original expectations of Places for People have been exceeded by the service provided by GoodPractice. Continuous support is delivered via both new and updated content, as well as additional resources to assist with the internal promotion of the toolkit.

Client Testimonial

“We see GoodPractice as leaders in this field and we see the toolkit as a great way to encourage informal learning throughout the organisation. The toolkit has proven to be very cost-effective; we used to send staff on time management courses whereas we now direct them directly to the toolkit, and this alone has delivered a huge saving for the business. With the toolkit, for a relatively small amount of money we are able to offer support to all our staff.”

Marie Leadbetter, Learning and Development Advisor, Places for People