We entered the 2024 IIP awards to celebrate and recognise our people and business achievements since the pandemic, and to set us apart from the rest. We are proud of how far we have come.
GLL is a charitable social enterprise and employee-owned co-operative, operating leisure, libraries and children’s centres on behalf of local authority partners across the UK. We are supported by a passionate 11,500 workforce who are aligned to our purpose, to improve the physical, mental and social well-being of local communities.
As a people facing business, the quality of service and passion delivered through our brilliant people is business critical.
Organisation care for our people was a priority during the pandemic and we took the time to consult with our people to reset the business by developing a 5-year plan, Creating our Future.
The plan has clarified our business goals, ensuring every employee understands the contribution they make to our business success and revised values.
In addition to bringing our people with us, we bought together the People Team as one, under the leadership of Lorraine Patrinos (People Director), with the express objectives of rooting the People Team in the operational business and taking an Organisation Development approach to the people strategy to maximise business impact. Lorraine won the Outstanding Individual Leadership of the Year 2024 at the UK Active Awards.
We have held an IIP award continuously since 1996. However, post-pandemic we changed our approach to IIP, building IIP communities and an infrastructure of internal assessors to ensure that good people practice is understood by managers and lived every day in our facilities.
Despite our long IIP history, this is the first time we have entered an IIP award category. Our motivation for doing this was in recognition of our Gold Award in 2023, our renewed business and organisation development strategy and local ownership and accountability of good people practice and evident culture shift.
To be shortlisted for The Purpose Driven People Community, is confirmation that putting our people first, and our people living our values, creates community and business impact. It simply aligns with what we do.
As a charitable social enterprise we are proud of our better way of doing business. To be shortlisted ratifies our impact and serves to say thank-you and congratulations to our people and partners who make a difference to people’s lives every day. This makes us proud.
To have this progress and continuous improvement acknowledged and recognized at a national level is the icing on the cake!
As a charitable social enterprise we are proud of our better way of doing business. To be shortlisted ratifies our impact and serves to say thank-you and congratulations to our people and partners who make a difference to people’s lives every day. To win this prestigious award would make us even prouder (if possible).
This award will mean so much to our people across the organisation, rewarding and recognizing the hard work and contribution of all our people to the success of the organisation. It is important to acknowledge that our success relates to our people and there is so much business power in the we and us.
Winning would also recognise the significant improvement we have made in the people space over the last 28 years of accreditation and our commitment to our ‘More than a Job Value’ as well as solidifying the emphasis on training, development and career progression opportunities that we have within the organisation to support all employees is the right path to take as a people oriented business.
We have made fantastic progress in our IIP assessment with significantly improved survey scores in many indicators such as a 20% increase in agreement that our values guide how we operate; and an increase of 25% of people agreeing that GLL is a great place to work.
Finally, to meet our social objectives, we must drive our business and be competitive. To have achieved the IIP Gold Award already sets us apart from the rest; to be an award winner would give us a fantastic USP.
We have been an IIP organisation continuously since 1996. It has been a framework that has supported us in leveraging organisation change and progress throughout our 28-year history as an IIP organisation.
Being part of the Investors in People Community allows us to share and learn best practice with like-minded organisations’ from across various sectors and industries and countries; and to ensure we are up to speed with recent research into people and workforce trends. It is a vital and vibrant network.
The IIP assessor community is fantastic! We have been lucky enough to have had Matthew Filbee as our assessor for a number of years which means he truly understands our business. We receive detailed, constructive and honest reports that identify our strengths and areas for improvement that support our progress.
The IIP community has been pivotal in supporting us in the setting up of our own GLL IIP community. Our approach to accountability and ownership has resulted in IIP forums to increase awareness and education and a formal training programme to grow an infrastructure of internal IIP assessors that support the formal assessment process. This means that we have our own embedded IIP champion community and helps to maintain the momentum for continuous improvement and supported us in working with our people to reach Gold IIP status in 2023
Share to:
Share to:
Attract Top Talent.
Boost Business Growth.
Get Recognition.
Discover how we can assess your organisation against established benchmarks to improve your business performance.
Our calendar of webinars and live events has something for everyone. Browse our upcoming events and let us guide you to a better workplace for your people.
Ready to make work better? Complete the form below and one of our team will be in touch to discuss your accreditation enquiry.
Ready to make work better? Complete the form below and one of our team will be in touch to discuss your accreditation enquiry.
