A housing association has been shortlisted for one of the UK’s leading people management awards. 

Platform Housing Group – one of the largest social landlords in the county – has been shortlisted for the CIPD People Management Awards for 2021. 

The organisation has been shortlisted in the Best Digital/Technology Initiative in HR/L&D category. 

The category encouraged submissions from organisations that have understood their end users and their needs to build solutions that have delivered business benefits, met user needs and achieved strategic objectives through the innovative use of technology or digital solutions. 

The Group’s entry – entitled Learning in the Flow of Work – described how the social landlord’s Learning and Development team designed learning that supported colleagues moving to a CRM, via MS Office 365 Dynamics.  The learning was easily made available in ‘the flow of work’ to enable colleagues to quickly and simply access the learning and bespoke support they needed, when they needed it.  This approach removed the need for traditional classroom training delivery which takes people out of their roles to learn and placed learner and customer needs at the heart of the learning design. 

Alison Bishop, Head of Learning and Organisational Development at Platform Housing Group said : “This change required upskilling on a new system, new processes and changes to behaviour around customer interaction.  Following a review of what needed to be achieved from a learning perspective, the Learning and Development team put forward the concept of ‘learning in the flow of work.’  It has allowed us the opportunity to accelerate our own Learning and Development strategy, underpinned by our values and behaviours, where colleagues own their own learning.  We are encouraging self service upskilling by giving learners easy access to the learning material while carrying out their roles, making this process more agile, productive and easier to manage. 

“We are therefore thrilled to be shortlisted for such a prestigious award.” 

The next stage in the process will require Platform Housing Group to present its entry to a panel of judges; the awards ceremony will take place at The Grosvenor House in London on Tuesday 28 September. 

Platform Housing Group – which owns 46,000 homes in total – completed 1448 homes in 2019/20 (1,598 in 2018/19) at an investment of £258m (£228m in 2018/19).  The Group also built more social rented homes – at a figure of 981 – during the past 2 years in England than any other provider, 523 in 2019/20, almost 33% of the total homes built. 

Platform Housing Group’s operating area is from Herefordshire in the West to the Lincolnshire coast in the East, and from the Derbyshire Dales in the North to the Cotswolds in the South.