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Press releaseNS&I TAKES HOME THE HR, LEARNING AND DEVELOPMENT AWARD AT THE WHITEHALL AND WESTMINSTER WORLD CIVIL SERVICE AWARDS 200614 December 2006National Savings and Investments (NS&I), the government-backed savings and investments provider, was awarded the HR, Learning and Development Award at this year’s Whitehall and Westminster World Civil Service Awards for its successful organisational development initiative. Applause, a three year cultural change programme, has harnessed commitment and engagement within the organisation in order to deliver excellence. The programme which includes a new approach to performance management, greater transparency and makes better use of feedback from within the organisation, has underpinned NS&I’s recent success, which includes expected record sales of over £12 billion in 2006/07 with no additional funding. Modernising cultureApplause was first introduced in 2003 in order to ensure NS&I had the working practises, skills and culture to deliver its five year strategy known, as Direction 2007, which aimed to grow the business by £15 billion in just five years. NS&I is almost a ‘virtual business’, as the day to day operational running of the products and services was outsourced to Siemens Business Services in 1999. This means there are only 135 people directly employed by the organisation. To achieve the targets NS&I had to ensure it worked smarter, had empowered employees who lived the corporate values and could develop more flexible working practices. Applause was developed as a delivery framework to create an environment that would give people the confidence to deliver excellent service and results by changing attitudes, pushing the boundaries, and challenging traditional behaviours and values. It combines initiatives from the private sector such as Lean, a continuous improvement programme which identifies process improvements and empowers teams to implement the changes, with recognition tools and a bespoke leadership programme to develop the style of leadership best suited to the business. Achieving successThe results from the 2005 annual employee survey demonstrate the progress over the past three years.
Confidence to excelSandra Postles, NS&I’s HR director who collected the award at the ceremony in London’s Lancaster House said: “Just as the business has been moving from being highly product and operations-orientated into a customer-focused culture, our internal change programme has been all about focusing on people. Both the individual initiatives and the way we deliver the overall programme are about giving people the confidence to excel and ensuring we share success. “We are now working in a more responsive and engaged way which is essential to ensure NS&I continues to be a leading savings and investments provider.“ ENDS Notes to editors: National Savings and Investments National Savings and Investments (NS&I) is one of the UK’s largest savings and investments providers with around 26 million customers and £77 billion invested. NS&I provides a wide range of savings and investments, including Premium Bonds, Savings Certificates, Income Bonds, Children’s Bonus Bonds, Guaranteed Equity Bonds and the Easy Access Savings Account. NS&I is able to offer a 100% capital guarantee on all the products it offers because it is backed by HM Treasury. NS&I, formed in 1861, is a government department and an executive agency of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. It is almost a ‘virtual business’ as it only employs 135 people directly. The Chief Executive is Jane Platt.
Media team The numbers below are for media use only. Customers wishing to contact NS&I can find details here.
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