Building on the basics: using data to improve staff engagement
University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (UCLH) is a large acute hospitals trust providing clinical services across 12 sites in London with over 11,000 staff. The trust uses its NHS Staff Survey data alongside other feedback mechanisms and sources of information to understand what motivates and supports its people. This work helps to inform its staff engagement strategy and ensures that staff voices are heard in decision-making. This ongoing cycle of engagement has resulted in improvements across its NHS Staff Survey results and seen it be one of the highest scoring trusts in the country.
Results and benefits
With a focused approach to improved staff experience using data, the trust has seen significant improvements over the last three years in its NHS Staff Survey scores, particularly for staff engagement, and right across the People Promise metrics, which have also continued to improve.
UCLH has been the number one out of the acute and acute community trusts in the annual NHS Staff Survey for the last three years on the question of whether staff would recommend their organisation as a place to work.
Furthermore, the organisations has sustained improvement on staff engagement for second year running to be in top five acute trusts, as well as being in the top ten for staff perception of positive action on health and wellbeing.
What the organisation faced
Like most acute hospital trusts, UCLH experienced a fall in some of its NHS Staff Survey scores in the immediate post-pandemic period.
UCLH cares about its people, and strives to continue to improve as an employer of choice, and particularly during and after the pandemic focused on staff wellbeing, and improving staff experience. It has set out a new vision for UCLH in its workforce and organisational development strategy.
The strategy aims to develop and sustain a healthy and productive work environment which supports professional growth and development, positive staff experience and wellbeing, and through excellence in all we do to support our staff, making UCLH an employer of choice.
Key objectives within the strategy are:
- Attract great people
- Develop our people
- Retain our people
- Advance our people
- Exceptional care for our people.
Staff engagement is foundational to achieving these objectives.
What the organisation did
The trust shifted its focus to seeking staff feedback throughout the year, as it recognised that staff voices are key to the development and implementation of workforce initiatives, and to understanding the context and needs of staff throughout each year.
Since the onset of COVID-19, active efforts have been made to build relationships with teams across the whole staff cohort, as well as honorary, volunteers, bank, and contractor staff.
UCLH now uses all communications from staff as feedback, whether it is emails and phone calls to the workforce team, questions asked at the chief executive's all staff online briefings, online drop-in sessions, comments on the intranet, conversations in the corridor, and annual, quarterly and ad hoc surveys. This all provides a constant temperature check of ideas, suggestions, queries, and concerns from staff.
This consistent commitment to engagement was also reflected in the 2023 workforce customer service survey and the development of the workforce and organisational development strategy, which involved hundreds of staff members contributing their insights, enabling a strategy of the voices of staff.
Using data to improve staff experience
Deep dive analysis of NHS Staff Survey results led to the identification of five strategic workforce priorities over the past few years, focusing on the continuous improvement of health and wellbeing (HWB); flexible working; equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI); violence prevention and reduction (VPR); and bullying and harassment (BH).
Feedback loops, such as the you said, we did initiative have ensured that staff voices are heard and acted upon and updates are fed back about how staff voices have influenced change. Quarterly staff surveys ask local questions based on these five strategic workforce priorities among other key themes of inquiry, which helps triangulate and use data effectively.
UCLH’s Be Well health and wellbeing programme employed a research associate across two years to successfully evaluate the impact of a range of health and wellbeing projects such as joy at work and respite space initiatives, which won the HPMA Health and Wellbeing Award in 2024.
The organisation boasts over 300 wellbeing champions and seven growing staff networks, as well as working with staff governors, and staff partners, to amplify the voices of the workforce in every opportunity. All data gathered from these interactions is used to enhance the work environment and address staff needs as well as continuing to gather feedback.
UCLH’s new workforce and organisational development strategy
Developed through wide-ranging engagement with staff, the trust has developed a new workforce and organisational strategy, which is focused on UCLH being an employer of choice. This builds on the previous work the trust did on developing values with staff, which are the foundation of its staff recognition framework and include individual and team awards and celebration events. This work progresses UCLH’s staff recognition programme aims, which are to foster a culture of appreciation. The new strategy also continues to embed UCLH values via a new framework setting out expectations of staff to UCLH and vice versa and between staff and their line managers.
As part of its work on staff experience the trust has used the basis of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs to review everything from the basic physiological, security, social needs, to esteem, and self-actualisation needs to constantly review where to put focus on improvements. If the basics aren’t right, for example: no access to out of hours food, or no microwave to heat up food, then the foundations of staff experience aren’t solid. Once the foundations are addressed the other factors come into play, all of them being key overall.
Overcoming obstacles
In feedback, UCLH staff appreciate and support the organisational values. However, during the last few years there have been challenges, such as industrial action, and this has tested the values. Throughout these times, UCLH has worked in a way that has emphasised a shared value of kindness – seeing staff pull together to maintaining relationships and support, leading to no negative impact on NHS Staff Survey results.
Last year the trust focussed on raising the response rate to the NHS Staff Survey and increased this by 9 per cent adding an extra 1000 voices.
Take away tips
Staff feedback should be more than a one-off event or a point in the year. The NHS Staff Survey should complement the continuous listening and feedback loops with staff throughout the year. Staff voices are gold and help to steer the organisation particularly when working in continuously changing operating contexts.
Interventions and actions to improve staff experience can be piloted, evaluated and evidence based, and NHS Staff Survey data can be an integral part of that process. In addition, if staff feed back that initiatives aren’t working, be brave enough to cease them and work with staff to pilot other initiatives using data.
Data is a rich resource and gives you leverage. For example, when you say, staff have said X or Y, and it is backed by 100s of comments and feedback you have a clear steer. Gathering feedback, talking with staff about things that impact on staff experience is critical to help shape the agenda each year.
Be can-do in your approach. It is surprising how many things can actually be done, fixed, or supported – and often it’s the simplest of things, the 101 basics that make a huge difference to staff.
Contact
For more information about this work, please contact Jane Keep PhD, head of staff experience, UCLH via jane.keep@nhs.net.
