The purpose of this guide is to empower those responsible for elements of the staff experience agenda to engage senior leaders and board members in promoting a positive and supportive staff experience.
Since the publication of this guide, the NHS Staff Standards have been introduced, setting nationally required minimum standards for staff experience. Board-level leadership and accountability are central to successful implementation, making senior sponsorship of staff experience initiatives more important than ever.
Introduction
It's crucial to understand your organisation's structure and routes to influence. Knowing these will help you target the right people at the right time, ensuring your strategy is effectively communicated and endorsed.
Securing buy-in from senior leaders and the board is essential, as they are responsible for making strategic decisions about the organisation’s future, priorities and resources. A positive culture, championed by the board, enhances staff experience and improves patient outcomes. The board can support innovation by encouraging new processes and modelling innovative practices. Additionally, emphasising the board’s role as an anchor institution highlights its impact on the local community’s health and wellbeing and addressing health inequalities.
A robust staff experience strategy, supported and championed by the board, will empower you to:
- overcome organisational barriers
- secure necessary investment in resources
- embed these initiatives into core business practices
- prioritise them as strategic investments
- promote organisation-wide and system-wide engagement.
Building a business case
How leaders can turn support into action
- Encourage leaders/the board to lead by example and challenge the stigma associated with physical or mental health issues by being open about their personal experiences and role-modelling positive behaviours.
- Approach board members with a clear plan on how their support can advance the agenda. Examples include publicly advocating for initiatives, contributing to blog posts, recognising staff efforts, and participating in health and wellbeing activities.
- Invite senior leaders to attend staff experience steering group meetings. Present updates at committees where senior leaders are present and collaborate on joint projects related to staff experience, such as retention, staff engagement, and diversity and inclusion. Recognise that many directors have associates to whom they may delegate these tasks, ensuring their involvement and support in these initiatives.
- Utilise the NHS health and wellbeing framework and its diagnostic tool to assess health and wellbeing needs, plan and deliver targeted interventions, and evaluate their impact. This structured approach ensures initiatives are aligned with national priorities and tailored to the specific needs of your organisation.
Senior leaders and their priorities
The NHS Staff Standards place explicit expectations on organisations and leaders to prioritise staff experience and workforce wellbeing. Board members collectively provide oversight, assurance and sponsorship for this agenda, ensuring staff experience is embedded within strategic decision-making.
Performance against the standards will be assessed in the NHS Oversight Framework. The score will be derived from NHS Staff Survey responses and will provide a nationally consistent measure of delivery against the standards.
This means staff experience is not only a workforce priority but also an area of organisational performance that boards will be expected to oversee and improve.
Organisations that invest in staff experience are therefore supporting both workforce outcomes and broader organisational performance objectives.
As implementation becomes embedded within the NHS Oversight Framework, staff experience measures will play an increasingly important role in organisational assurance and performance. Investing in staff experience can therefore positively influence workforce outcomes, organisational performance and delivery of national priorities.
The following section explores board roles and accountabilities, providing information on the evidence, statistics and facts you could share with senior leaders when presenting your business case.
Key strategies to demonstrate to the board
A positive staff experience drives organisational performance. It improves retention, enhances patient care and service quality, reduces sickness absence and lowers expenditure on temporary staffing. Flexible working supports recruitment and retention, helping services manage workforce shortages, while high levels of staff engagement are linked to greater innovation, productivity and quality improvement. Creating a culture where staff feel safe to speak up helps identify risks early, reduces errors and supports better patient outcomes.
When engaging with the board:
- Demonstrate alignment with organisational priorities and people objectives. Show how improving staff experience contributes to workforce sustainability, recruitment and retention, staff wellbeing, and the delivery of high-quality care.
- Present the business case. Highlight evidence of improved retention, reduced sickness absence, lower agency and bank staff costs, and increased staff engagement.
- Use data and staff insight. Combine workforce metrics with staff survey results, feedback and lived experiences to demonstrate impact and areas for improvement.
- Promote evidence-based interventions. Showcase practical, proven approaches that can improve staff experience with minimal investment of time and resources, while delivering measurable benefits for staff and organisations.
Promote the staff experience agenda across the organisation
- Work with your communications team to share progress and updates on staff experience initiatives through internal newsletters, emails and intranet channels. Our communications guide offers practical tips and tools to support successful campaigns and engagement activities.
- Engage colleagues from different departments and system partners to build a network of health and wellbeing champions who can promote staff experience initiatives locally. Use this network to test and refine plans, gather feedback and encourage champions to advocate for your strategy among staff.
- Organise workshops, learning events and training sessions that support improvements in staff experience, wellbeing and organisational culture.
- Use regular surveys, listening events and feedback mechanisms to gather insight and demonstrate that staff views are heard and acted upon.
- Establish recognition programmes that celebrate individual and team contributions to creating a positive workplace culture.
- Involve staff in co-production and collaborative projects to improve the working environment and address issues that matter the most to them.
- Encourage senior leaders to participate in staff experience activities and visibly champion the importance of staff experience across the organisation.
- Use posters, digital displays, staff briefings and other communication channels to reinforce key messages and raise awareness of staff experience priorities.
- Share success stories, case studies and examples of positive impact to demonstrate how staff experience initiatives have benefitted staff, patients and the organisation.
Further resources
- The NHS People Promise
- NHS Employers' NHS Staff Standards hub
- NHS Staff Standards FAQs
- NHS Employers' NHS Staff Standards implementation planning tool
- NHS Employers' Think Flex First NHS toolkit
- NHS Employers' sickness absence toolkit
- NHS Employers' sickness absence savings calculator
- NHS Staff Survey results 2025
- Management of Sickness Absence in NHS Trusts (2026) - NHS-specific research on absence and workforce wellbeing
- Writing your NHS business case guidance from the Health Innovation Network
