BEST programme is highly commended at Midlands Excellence
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EmailThe Council’s innovative BEST programme, was ‘highly commended’ in the newly launched ‘Innovation’ category at the respected Midlands Excellence Awards. The BEST programme beat off over 50 competitors to come second in the ‘innovation’ category and was delighted to be given this accolade in their first year of entering these awards.
Councillor Rudge and Raffaela Goodby with the award
Birmingham Post Supplement on Midlands Excellence Awards Jan 09
Raffaela Goodby, Employee Engagement Manager for BCC and manager of the passionate and innovative programme team, put together the entry, before making a presentation to the panel along with a BEST Leader and manager colleagues to give the judges a real flavour of how innovation was happening right across the Council.
The judging panel were impressed with the use of a structured programme to engage staff, and in particular the Openspace event that was held to consult over 1000 BEST Leaders in June 07.They also commented on the use of various communication channels such as facebook, youtube and a ‘twitter’ feed which can be found @birminghambest
Cllr Alan Rudge, Cabinet Member for Equalities and Human Resources, who is the Cabinet BEST sponsor and who has been supportive of the BEST programme from the outset said "I believe effective employee engagement commitment comes through offering staff the opportunity to make a difference and influence elements of decisions that affect their customers. The BEST programme has facilitated this, and encouraged creativity and innovation to flourish at all levels within the council. Coming second at these wards demonstrate how successful and effective the best programme has been".
The team at the Midlands Excellence Awards
In 2009 the BEST programme will continue the team BEST workshop approach to produce further innovative improvement actions for the customers of Birmingham. Chief Executive Stephen Hughes concludes that "recognition from organisations such as Midlands Investors in Excellence adds validation to what we are already doing well, and that is putting the customer at the heart of everything we do".
