Wood Green Animal Shelters

Charity Awards

'Having fun is good for animals'

Wood Green Animal Shelters take in unwanted and lost animals and help to find them secure and loving homes. In recent years, however, it had been under-performing. Customer and staff feedback showed that employee morale was low and the charity’s rehoming policy was too inflexible. This meant that animals stayed longer, which increased costs, reduced rehoming income and blocked spaces for other unwanted animals.

In addition, this delay was damaging the charity’s reputation and affecting animals’ behaviour, making them more institutionalised and harder to rehome. Wood Green needed to implement a programme of culture change. In late 2001, a new management team was brought in to tackle staff morale and animal rehoming issues.

‘We looked at our whole structure and took a holistic approach towards changing the whole culture,’ says HR manager, Maureen Wooster. Six key areas were addressed: induction, appraisal, training and development, rewarding skills and loyalty, social interaction and having fun.

The results have been spectacular. Successes attributed to the programme include a 45 per cent increase in re-homing, a decrease in the average animal stay from 34 to 17 days, as well as reduced staff turnover and absence.

The judges praised the project’s ‘very strong management’. ‘We’re now more effective at rehousing animals, which means we receive more money, and staff morale has increased too,’ says Wooster. ‘The whole feeling here is much happier.’

highly commended Dennis Baker
Chief executive
London Road
Godmanchester
Cambridgeshire
08701 409040
Reg no. 298348
www.woodgreen.org.uk

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