The 2010 HR Excellence Awards have seen supermarket giant Sainsbury’s awarded the honour of Best HR Team.

The award represents a massive turnaround in fortunes for the HR department at the retail leader, following the successful implementation of the in-house ‘Making Sainsbury’s Great Again’ programme.

The initiative, launched for years ago after the group found its HR team to be mired in administration-heavy paperwork, led to widespread cultural changes and a new emphasis on greater teamwork, which has now been recognised across the HR industry. Judges for the HR excellence awards were particularly impressed by Sainsbury’s dynamic new approach to its HR services which had seen a group-wide unification of approach and understanding. They also highlighted how the vision for HR was able to be effectively incorporated into the group’s overall business plan, which had helped Sainsbury’s to achieve a marked turnaround in profit.

Under the new HR vision, communication was seen as the heart of the group’s philosophy, with staff given greater input and understanding for the overall business model, notably via the creation of the Sainsbury’s HR Manager’s Wheel. This was used to communicate to HR staff the five main skills of any HR manager; being a change agent, a coach and business partner, an HR expert a talent manager, and a relationship manager.

Under the new approach, there were also changes to the staffing processes, which were simplified to result in the creation an £8 billion benefit. Additionally, shared services division, based in Manchester, allowed for a greater emphasis in the area of value added delivery to the HR operation. Ultimately, Sainsbury’s newfound success can be witnessed in the greater team approach, which has seen more revenue and more jobs.

Tags: award, business model, HR, HR Excellence Awards, Sainsbury's, staff, team approach