YourNews: BWB wins major national award for staff retention strategy
BWB Consulting has proved it’s one of the best businesses in the country for recruiting and retaining the best people.
The Nottingham-based design engineering consultancy has secured a prestigious national award which recognises the success its human resources team has enjoyed in attracting talented staff and giving them a great place to work.
The recognition came in the form of the Best Retention Strategy accolade in the 2016 Construction Investing in Talent Awards, presented at a ceremony in London by Construction News and New Civil Engineer.
BWB, which has its headquarters at Waterfront House on Station Street, won the award because of the way in which its strategy has resulted in a 15 per cent increase in staff retention figures during the last 12 months.
Elizabeth Hardwick-Smith, Head of HR at BWB, says the success stems from a decision at board level to make retaining people a key business priority.
She said: “Attracting the right talent and delivering a professional environment which works for them is a major factor in long-term business success. This is why we carry out careful analysis of exit data and staff engagement surveys and discuss these trends every quarter at our board meetings.
“We’ve improved our recruitment process and the way we introduce people into the business so that we select the right people and give them a positive first impression. In addition, we have restructured our probation periods, putting much more emphasis on having quality conversations with people in their early months.”
She added: “We haven’t stopped there. We’ve taken some significant steps in improving the ways in which we involve our people in business operations, in our flexible working strategies, career growth and employee rewards. We want BWB to be a great place to work for long servers and new joiners alike.”
Judges said there was clear evidence that BWB’s strategy was having a positive impact, and praised an “exceptional focus” on long-term results and the direct involvement of the firm’s Chief Executive, Steve Wooler.
Steve Wooler says the Retention Strategy Award reflects both best practice and significant success in the business: “This is a business-critical issue for all companies, not just BWB. The industry is currently grappling with balancing growing order books with a serious under-supply of talented people capable of delivering increasingly complex and challenging projects.
“We’re regularly reporting a retention rate of 85 – 90 per cent, which is good but we’d like it to keep getting better and better! BWB is not only a great place to work it’s a business that affords tremendous opportunity for talented and ambitious individuals to carve out successful and rewarding careers.”
