HR/L&D team of the year

By recognising that the heavily-regulated care sector could often put low-paid, downtrodden workers under increasing pressure, brighterkind strived to make work fun and motivational, in an industry not renowned for either. 

brighterkind’s controversial stance on putting team members first by using staff feedback to develop new L&D opportunities worked to remove blame culture, and encourage motivated teamwork. 

Where the focus had previously been on putting shareholders first, the L&D team decided to put its workforce first. 

Fixed on the belief that a happy team would result in happy residents, which would raise occupancy levels while having a positive impact on financial goals and profits, in 2016, the head of culture and development (HDC) met team members around the UK for feedback. 

This research highlighted that workers felt a new range of learning opportunities could help to create a fun, caring culture for all – and the chief executive budgeted accordingly. 

Having scrapped e-learning at staff request, the HDC created a portfolio of activity-based learning activities to be delivered by volunteer cultural ambassadors, dubbed ‘pacesetters’. Pacesetters would deliver sessions in every home and office – a move that brighterkind believes is unique to the care sector. 

The pacesetters volunteer programme became a hive of support, where trainers would share training guides and stories from their learning events on a Facebook group, which has since been dubbed the most successful L&D initiative, and seen two pacesetters move to L&D roles.

Since its implementation, annual team surveys have returned a 12 per cent increase in positive comments towards L&D while its employee net promoter score (eNPS) has increased from -3.6 in 2016 to 19.8 in 2018.

Similarly, brighterkinds Net Promoter Score went from 12.9 in 2016 to a “world-class” 50.01 in 2018, with a large body of comments stating objectives for the cultural programme as reasons for the scores, such as team attitude and values.