Developing an engagement approach for improved Staff Survey results

Key outcomes and benefits

DBTH’s improved NHS Staff Survey results, seen in the 2023 results, in comparison with previous years underscore much of the work that has been driven forward in the last few years. Most notably and in addition to the new People Strategy and DBTH Way framework, developing a Just Culture ethos, the introduction of an Education Quality Framework, a plethora of new strategies, a DBTH annual people leadership conference and the implementation of the Patient Safety Incident Response Framework.

For a number of years, DBTH has maintained an impressive staff survey response rate, consistently being above 60 per cent  This is achieved through purposeful communications via social media channels and managers proactively encouraging and enabling colleagues to complete the staff survey, as well as setting clear expectations for leaders regards how they engage with their teams about the results and to create deliverable action improvement plans.

What the organisation faced

In 2023 DBTH found itself in a position where it sought to shift its organisational culture with the aim of improving staff experience. 

Following the pandemic and the impact of different ways of working, some organisational change and increasing pressures across the service, trust leaders decided it was the right time to develop a five year people strategy and culture change programme, which would both be measurable against NHS Staff Survey scores. 

The organisation had average staff engagement scores in 2023 and aimed to boost these as well as raising its response rate. Another ambition was to address the variation between teams, which was quite wide, and challenge it shares in common with other trusts.

What the organisation did

The local organisational development (OD) team collaborated with the people business partner (PBP) team, which is an effective portal to directly and communicate key messages between leadership teams. 

The PBP created a suite of tools designed for good quality and participative engagement to occur, leading to actionable insights for each area of the organisation based on their results, such as line manager development, which are delivered and confirmed back to colleagues as achievements. There is an alignment between the PBP and OD teams, enabling collaboration in the design and delivery of OD interventions which may be identified via NHS Staff Survey results and/or engagement events.

In 2023, the organisation redesigned its leadership offer to compliment and support the new people strategy and the DBTH Way.  The approach the trust took in creating the DBTH Way had a strong focus on the ethos that everyone has capacity to influence and lead, with leadership not solely being about a job title, but rather creating a mindset of individual and team leadership to make changes and improvements locally. 

The DBTH Way framework sits alongside the ‘We Care’ values to define expectations of one another, strengthen a commitment to providing exceptional care as well as ensuring colleagues have a great working experience.

The organisation is also using its NHS Staff Survey results and the Team Engagement Diagnostic (TED) tool as ways to measure change and organisational development across teams. DBTH began using TED in 2022 as an organisational development intervention, as it offers teams a way to measure engagement and effectiveness and contains a development toolkit to help teams develop and maintain high performance. TED uses a survey methodology similar to the NHS Staff Survey, however has added benefits that teams can be as small as three people. This ensures the data is always specific to that team and allows autonomy to choose what to focus on.

Results and benefits

In January 2024, funding had been secured from NHS Charities to further develop the usage and effectiveness of the TED tool for an extended pilot. Within a year, the organisation has been able to collect data to identify how the TED tool has helped teams and to shape improved ways working, such as the development of regular multidisciplinary team briefings on wards. 

Armed with this information, the organisation is exploring how it can expand the use of TED across its teams to complement the year-round cycle of engagement. 

Over the last two years, the NHS Staff Survey results at DBTH have shown year-on-year improvements under the theme of ‘We are learning’, specifically that the organisation is making development opportunities more accessible.

Furthermore, the organisation is working towards achieving the highest score in the sector for question 24E: ‘I am able to access the right learning and development opportunities when I need to’. In the 2024 NHS Staff Survey results, DBTH performed better than the sector average in this question. 

There is a genuine drive and commitment to giving mechanisms for colleagues to voice their views and actively collaborate. Forums such as, leadership assemblies, Freedom to Speak up conferences, leadership behaviour workshops, executive director engagement sessions, workforce network groups enable this and demonstrate our engagement all year-round approach.

Overcoming obstacles

The team at DBTH found that embedding the sense that NHS Staff Survey results are the responsibility of all leaders across the whole organisation was a challenge. 

The organisation developed People Committee and Performance Review meetings, where executive colleagues meet with senior leaders of divisions to highlight and work through issues. These meetings offer a clear and structured ask of leaders (for example to read results, deliver engagement events, create an action plan and communicate achievements regularly) is key to making these meetings a worthwhile use of time. 

Takeaway tips

Develop a range of routes through which staff can put forward their views alongside the NHS Staff Survey.

Being able to evaluate staff views at team levels for example the team engagement diagnostic tool can provide vital data to help organisations with culture change and improved staff engagement. 

Focus on small number of measurable staff survey indicators rather than trying to address every issue all at once. This way organisations can measure success and count wins. 

Contact

For more information, please contact Christine White, head of people business partnering at Doncaster and Bassetlaw Hospitals Trust via Christine.White7@nhs.net.