HR and employment practice case studies

NCVO’s Good Employment Practice case studies take you through a range of developments made in the workplace, and highlight some of the valuable HR work that is happening in the voluntary and community sector.

Read how organisations have managed their restructure or rolled out a new leadership programme for staff. You’ll learn about the key challenges that organisations have navigated. And find advice and tips to help you make your own planning a success.

Case studies are available in the following areas:

• Updating and reviewing HR policies
• Redundancy and Restructuring
• Staff engagement
• Equality and Diversity
• Pension Schemes 
• Learning and development 
• Leadership 
• Recruitment and retention
• Collaboration

These case studies may not be copied or used without the consent of the originating organisations.

Updating and reviewing HR policies

How we updated and consulted on HR policies within our organisation (pdf, 217Kb)
Gurdip Rai, HR advisor for Hillingdon Association of Voluntary Services (HAVS) spoke to us about the process she follows to update her organisation’s HR policies.

Redundancy and restructuring

How we restructured our organisation and managed redundancies (pdf, 155 Kb)
Theobald Spyrou, chief executive for Whittington Park Community Association explains how his organisation was restructured to improve its sustainability.

Staff engagement

How we engaged staff by encouraging them to develop innovative projects (pdf, 900Kb)
Cara Cooper, HR manager for Mind in Croydon shares her experiences of supporting and encouraging staff to take forward new ideas for her charity.

How we used staff surveys (pdf, 241Kb)
Karen Philips, Head of HR for the Brooke told us about the staff survey the charity completed as part of its staff engagement strategy.

Equality and diversity

How we use equality impact assessments in our organisation (pdf, 404Kb)
Ade Fashade, equality and diversity manager for Shelter outlines how his team introduced equality impact assessments across his organisation.

How we renewed our Equality and Diversity policies (pdf, 163Kb)
Tracy Ray, Diversity Officer for Suffolk Association for Voluntary Organisations (SAVO) explained to us how she renewed her organisation’s Equal Opportunities and Equality and Diversity policies in light of the Equality Act 2010.

• How we encouraged disabled applicants to volunteer with us (pdf, 71Kb)
• How we promoted equality at our workplace (pdf, 58Kb)
• How we encouraged disabled service users to take up work placements with us (pdf, 55Kb)
• How we deliver our diversity training workshops (pdf, 72Kb)
• How we ensured that our cleaners were paid fairly (pdf, 81Kb)
• How we promoted diversity at our organisation (pdf, 74Kb)

Pension schemes

How we changed pension schemes at our organisation (pdf, 165Kb)

Learning and development

How we grew our organisation's learning and development (pdf, 160 Kb)
Gloria Ssali, Learning and Development Manager for YMCA London South West spoke to us about the initiatives she has driven to put learning at the heart of her organisation.

How we ran Action Learning Sets for Managers (pdf, 259Kb)
Sophie Bayley, Training Co-ordinator for Voscur, a Council for Voluntary Service based in Bristol and Jenny Idle from Volunteering Bristol spoke to NCVO about how they have worked together to set up action learning sets for volunteer managers.

How we developed and implemented a training programme for our staff (pdf, 150Kb)

Leadership

How we developed a leadership programme at our organisation (pdf, 146Kb)

Recruitment and retention

How we supported a small organisation to set up as an employer (pdf, 139Kb)
We spoke to Bob Curry, partnerships manager for the North Yorkshire Forum for Voluntary Organisations (NYFVO). Bob described his team’s work helping a small day centre to close and restart another organisation afresh with the right HR policies and processes in place.

How we recruited new members of staff for our organisation (pdf, 167Kb)
Katy Amberley, Headquarters Manager for the British Society for Haematology (BSH), spoke to us about the recruitment of a staff member for her team at head office

• How we improved recruitment and retention (pdf, 158Kb)
• How we recruited staff using a panel of service users (pdf, 100Kb)
• How we improved staff retention through staff development and absence management (pdf, 54Kb)
• How we improved staffing levels at our organisation (pdf, 98Kb)

Collaboration

• How we worked together to create a training programme (pdf, 81Kb)
• How we worked together to improve our financial strength and share internal services (pdf, 89Kb)
• How we collaborated to provide HR services to smaller agencies (pdf, 83Kb)
• How we swapped learning and shared resources with other organisations (pdf, 83Kb)
• How we collaborated to develop and expand our training networks (pdf, 86Kb)
• How we worked together to provide an HR & legal advisory service for other organisations (pdf, 85Kb)