Human Resources began its Excellence Canada efforts in December 2015 with the launch of an Excellence Canada survey to all HR employees. Following the communication of survey results early in 2016, HR decided to take a different approach to assessing the department against the Excellence, Innovation and Wellness (EIW) Standard’s requirements.
To complete assessment work, HR employees divided into six groups corresponding with the EIW Standard’s six drivers – Leadership and Governance, Strategy and Planning, Service Excellence, People Engagement, Process and Project Management, and Partners and Suppliers. Employees selected their top driver groups and also volunteered to co-chair these groups, if interested. HR’s senior leadership acted as coaches for these groups, but were not directly involved in the assessment work.
“HR's approach provided employees who may not normally work in a leadership role with the opportunity to gain leadership and team-building experience as part of a strategic initiative,” explains HR Director, Kenton Needham. “The co-chairs were given clear expectations in terms of deliverables, but they had full flexibility for how they guided their teams to achieve these deliverables.”
HR’s driver groups had approximately one month to complete their assessments of HR’s strengths and areas of opportunity against the standard. The entire department then regrouped to share results across driver groups. Working groups’ findings directly informed HR’s action planning to close gaps in order to achieve Silver certification and some of their work will inform priorities in HR’s business plans moving forward.
