The opening session consisted of two presentations. The first from Nita Clarke for the Government's employee engagement task force who updated the delegates on the work so far.
The second presentation was from Peter Bradley, chief executive of the London Ambulance Service who provided an overview of how they approached staff engagement, especially during difficult times.
The delegates then moved onto a number of workshops that looked at experiences both in the NHS and in outside organisations.
Download Nita's slides.
Download Peter's slides.
NHS experiences of staff engagement
There was a range of experience from existing high levels of engagement to organisations with challenges. The need for senior leadership support is critical and staff engagement-must not be seen as an HR only issue.
Delegates discussed a diverse range of challenges ranging from communications to culture and leadership. Common issues included building trust and a supportive culture and issue around how to support line managers.
There was agreement that all NHS organisations face the challenge of maintaining engagement in this tough financial period, some also have additional pressure from being abolished or have had forced mergers. There was also discussions around the adverse industrial relations such as the current pensions issue that could have a negative impact on staff engagement.
An outcome of the discussions was the need to share experiences regionally and between NHS Employers and trusts.
Staff engagement outside the NHS
This group looked at a number experiences from outside the NHS.
BT had been through major restructuring including job losses and closure of pension scheme but had maintained effective engagement through dialogue, honesty about finances and commitment to seek to avoid compulsory redundancy. Staff engagement dipped and then rose and the key to this was to support line managers with information about the changes.
Birmingham City Council has developed staff engagement approach based on "volunteers" who act as champions for staff engagement and mechanisms for staff involvement. You can read more about the Birmingham City Council approach on our staff engagement pages.
Colleagues from retail companies explained that they been through difficult market conditions but maintained engagement through support for line managers and being open with staff about trading conditions.
Interestingly, colleagues from the private sector were keen not to be seen as presenting itself as having solved problem and were keen to learn from NHS organisations.
The UK Work Organisation Network shared its experience on effective ways to promote involvement and stressed importance of job design as key issue and need to empower staff.
Recommendations from the summit
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Local leaders need to be as honest as they can be about how current context affects their organisation.
There is a range of experience in NHS with how to promote staff engagement-NHS Employers will look at how we can share these better and highlight updates to the staff engagement resource pack. Delegates were reminded about our staff engagement virtual community which was free to join.
NHS Employers and the Department of Health to look at specific issues of clinical engagement.
The issue of support for line managers key and more work was needed on this.
A need to look at segmenting key staff engagement messages and tailor messages to specific audience groups.
NHS Employers will look at the use of social media (though face to face communication also remains vital). Delegates were also reminded about our new Linked In group.
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