Responsabilidad Social Empresarial (RSE)

To find another similar job in a different organisation

13

To do a different type of work

13

KEY FINDINGS

• Engaged employees perform better and are more likely

to want to stay with their employer.

• Engaged employees are more innovative than others. 9

8 7

36 40

CASE STUDY:

NorthTrust

NorthTrust is an NHS foundation trust based in the north of England. It is a large public organisation providing acute healthcare to a population of over 300,000 people. The immediate catchment covers some 33 square miles, which is largely an urban area. It has foundation trust status, which means it has increased independence from government regulation and can reinvest any surpluses back into

improving service delivery. Annual income is in the region of £225 million.

The trust is also a teaching hospital and a tertiary centre providing specialist services to a wider population of around 1.5 million people. The population served by the trust includes some of the most socially deprived communities in the UK, with high rates of heart disease and cancer creating considerable demand for hospital-based care. The trust is one of the largest employers in the area with 4,500 staff. It has been accredited with Investor in People recognition for all workplace policies and practices.

The hospital has a bed complement of 860 inpatient and 105 day case beds. In 2007, the trust handled over 76,500 episodes of inpatient and day cases, over 280,000 outpatient attendances and nearly 87,000 emergency visits. The trust’s services are organised into 15 clinical business units, grouped by three main divisions: medicine and emergency, surgery and support services.

The vision of the trust is ‘to provide high-quality, patient- centred healthcare and proactively enhance the Trust’s local, national and international reputation’. The central aim of the HR strategy is for the trust to be an employer of choice for the area. Recent trends have included an increased workload of around 9% during 2007–08, perhaps reflecting an increase in patients choosing to be treated at the hospital under new NHS arrangements. The organisation has recently invested £2 million in ward-based nursing and made a financial surplus of £1.1 million in 2007–08 to be reinvested in the following financial year. The trust has also recently begun an ambitious £7.5 million reconfiguration of radiology facilities. In terms of service performance, the trust has delivered the 18-week waiting list targets and cancer targets set by the Department of Health.

NorthTrust joined the Kingston Business School Employee Engagement Consortium as an opportunity to learn from other organisations and feed the results into other HR initiatives, such as the annual staff survey and employee

involvement policy. The HR department in the trust has developed a wide range of practices and policies to support the diverse needs of the workforce. These are described by the HR team as initiatives that ‘value staff’. In addition to policy documents relating to partnership and involvement, they include schemes such as ‘Employee of the Month’, ‘Team of the Year’, long service awards, staff suggestion scheme/zone, health walks, cycle scheme, pamper days, flexible working, nursery and childcare vouchers, and gym discounts. The engagement research was conducted in two stages. First, a stratified sample of 2,000 employees was invited to complete an online questionnaire. A further 100 without Internet access were sent a paper version of the questionnaire. From this sample, 381 online questionnaires and 39 paper copies were returned, providing a total response rate of 20%. The second part of the research was conducting 20 face-to-face interviews with a range of clinical and managerial staff – including clinical business managers, general support, matrons and consultants. Further insights were gained through site visits and secondary documentation.

Three occupational groups made up the bulk of survey respondents – administrative and clerical, registered allied health professionals and registered nurses. There are a wide range of administrative jobs in the NHS, including medical records staff, call handlers, clerks, patient liaison administrators and receptionists. They serve important roles in organising appointments and maintaining patient records. Allied health professionals include people working within a variety of health treatment areas such as physiotherapy, dietetics, orthopaedics and radiography. Practitioners within these roles are registered with a professional body that regulates professional conduct and development. Registered nurses are responsible for various roles around patient care. They may specialise in a specific medical area or serve a more general role.

ENGAGEMENT LEvELS

The overall results of the survey are positive, with 85% being ‘highly’ or ‘very highly’ engaged. Thirteen per cent are moderate and only 1% have a low level of engagement. Levels of engagement frequency are similarly positive. Eighty-three per cent of respondents indicate that they are engaged on a daily or weekly basis, and only about 2% engage less than once every month. We will consider three areas that are contributing to high levels of engagement in

NorthTrust – involvement initiatives, satisfied workforce and clarity of objectives – and three areas that are less successful in this context – recruitment and retention in some roles, leadership style and communication.