Achieving Excellence Through People
In line with our commitment towards being a learning organisation that develops it’s people, we sought to again achieve the Excellence Through People accreditation that measures an organisations human resource management. In January this year, an independent auditor spent some time at our Head Office and Training Centre meeting employees across the organisation during his assessment.
Irish Guide Dogs for the Blind achieved our ETP standard in 2007 initially, but much has changed not only at the charity but also in terms of the criteria being measured in the ETP standard. With more and more organisations across Ireland subscribing to the ETP standard as a way to benchmark their operations against other similar sized organisations. Seeking accreditation gave us the opportunity to review where we are and see what areas need to be focused on to ensure we maintain a professional working environment where employees can enjoy what they do and achieve their potential.
Our progress was measured against eight criteria with covered topics such as business planning, effective communication, employee engagement, leadership and people management, recruitment and selection, training and development and employee wellbeing. In March, we received the good news that we had again secured our accreditation having achieved 92% in our audit showing positive progress in all areas.
