The big UBS ‘HR Hack’
On 19th July, the HR team at UBS – that’s almost 100 people! – joined forces with ELBA to take on their first ever ‘HR Hack’. As part of their day-long conference, volunteers from the HR department came together in small teams to support East London organisations with their HR-related issues.
Local organisations – namely charities, social enterprises and small businesses – are key to the development of East London and its communities, in the support they provide to local people, infrastructure, economy and wellbeing. Unfortunately, due to cuts in public sector funding, greater responsibility has fallen onto smaller organisations in order to fill in the gaps in services – both charitable and practical. These organisations also generally have less capacity with regards to their core functions, such as HR and comms.
At ELBA, we work to support organisations in East London to ensure they have the capacity and capability to be the best they can be for the communities they are based in. Volunteer teams from our corporate partners provide specialist knowledge and troubleshooting advice for these organisations on a wide range of topics, to help them solve specific strategic problems and ensure they are in the best position to carry out their work.
This was the first time that ELBA has worked with a team of 100 business skills volunteers to provide capacity building support in a specific area. They were split into small teams and assigned an organisation to work with, who had already identified what HR issues they needed support with. The session was spent brainstorming and coming up with an action plan of next steps for organisations to take away and implement.
There was a wealth of knowledge in the room, with issues ranging from how to hire new staff correctly, to promoting staff wellbeing and satisfaction.
Feedback was positive from community organisations and volunteers alike. One community organisation representative said:
“I was given a wealth of solutions to put in place and work on, which I really hope will be implemented in my organisation.”
And another expressed their appreciation:
“I really appreciated my mentors – invaluable advice, guidance, and support. So helpful and so genuine. Thank you!”
While a UBS volunteer said:
“(The workshop) forced me to really think about the challenges faced by our community partner… they have a smaller workforce than the team I work in so our practices don’t translate in the same way. Gave me a better understanding of our community!”
We know that communities could not thrive without the local organisations to keep them going. And with the extra HR support and knowledge they can now take their work forward and continue to expand and flourish.
Thank you to the HR team at UBS for all your insight and expertise, and for helping East London to continue blooming!
