BHF wins top HR prize for innovative workplace strategy

We took top prize for the Best Flexible Working Strategy at the prestigious HR Excellence Awards this week.

BHF team at awards ceremony.
The awards night celebrates and recognises the very best in people strategies, engagement, wellbeing and inclusivity with representation across all sectors and organisations, both nationally and internationally.

With fierce competition from big organisations like Allianz, NHS Midlands and Lancashire and KFC, our new ways of working approach, Flexibly Connected, was crowned winner.

Flexibly Connected officially launched in June 2021 in response to the changes in ways of working as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.

New way of working

In response to the immediate need to work remotely, we quickly grasped the great benefits and opportunities to be had from a new way of working, particularly around access to talent, wellbeing, and inclusivity.

The success of the strategy is thanks to our “best of both worlds” blend of old and new ways of working. This meant keeping some of the benefits that worked before the new model was brought in, like being together as a team when it makes sense to do so, and keeping a strong connection to cause.

The strategy is still evolving, and a key principle embedded in Flexibly Connected is the need to test and learn from experience. We recently held a further Ways of Working study with over 1,000 colleagues this year so they could feed back on the strategy.

Flexibly Connected was developed in response to an overwhelming majority of staff saying they wanted to work in a more hybrid way.

Supporting each other

Through Flexibly Connected, around 95 per cent of our previously office-based staff now work on blended contracts. Teams have developed team agreements on how and where they work, to support each other's wellbeing and to unlock the best work for our cause – a vision of a world free from the fear of heart and circulatory diseases.

Through the Flexibly Connected Spaces and Technology workstreams, we looked at each of our offices to provide new approaches to supporting different ways of working – like collaboration zones, one to one spaces and areas for quiet focused work. We also downsized our London office to align with our new strategy.

Underpinning all of this is the introduction of enhanced technology to support hybrid working – including new video conferencing facilities at each office and an upcoming office space booking software system.

The judging panel were particularly impressed by Flexibly Connected's inclusion of champions and diversity and inclusion in our thinking, 'celebrating our clear link to our organisational values'.

Kerry Smith, Our Chief People Officer, said: "I am absolutely thrilled to see Flexibly Connected recognised against such strong competitors at this prestigious event.

“Working in these ways has been new to all of us and we'll always be learning and evolving, but to see our work held up as an example of great industry practice is a true honour. On behalf of myself and my co-Executive Group sponsor, Martin Miles, I want to thank the team involved in delivering Flexibly Connected.

“But I really want to thank my colleagues for the way in which they have, and continue, to embrace the principles of Flexibly Connected, whilst always remembering why we're all here – to support the 7.6m people with heart and circulatory diseases, who need us now more than ever."