Nursing resentment

It’s an organisation’s worse nightmare. (Well, one of their worst nightmares.) You spent a whole load of time and effort on an engagement initiative, only to discover that the output is the precise reverse of what’s intended.

Or so it’s claimed has happened at the NHS. According to one expert writing in the Health Service Journal, engagement tools are actually demotivating staff.

Gordon Forbes is a consultant behind Listening Into Action, a platform which invites feedback from hundreds of thousands of NHS staff. His article concentrates on how the ‘personal energy’ of NHS staff gets lost, and cites figures that are pretty damning – not least the claim that ’77 per cent [of NHS employees] do not feel valued for the contribution they make and the work they do’.

Forbes mentions ten organisational components he believes are bad news for anyone wishing to build engagement.

What not to do

Among the danger signs are: having staff with the word ‘engagement’ in their job title; engagement being a function of HR; visions and values plastered on the walls but associated behaviours left unchecked; annual staff awards ceremonies; a proliferation of staff suggestion boxes; overuse of electronic media for internal communications; top-down, directive communications; and staff engagement surveys occurring with increasing regularity.

In their place Forbes suggests making sure staff themselves own engagement solutions, ensuring that leaders follow organisation-wide behavioural guidelines, and encouraging line managers to actually talk to their people face-to-face.

Forbes concludes by counselling against imposing a ‘ready made, externally-led transformation agenda’:

Bluntly, if frontline staff don’t have the time to do their day jobs, how will they find time to lead a work stream or an improvement project or a cost reduction initiative as part of your transformation effort?

For change to stick and sustain in the NHS, it needs to be led by frontline teams within their own areas, and it needs to happen as part of their day job.

It needs to be led and owned by clinicians, and they need to be supported by their fellow managers and corporate colleagues.

About the author

Andrew Baird

Andrew is the CEO of HRville. He is also Employer Brand Director of Blackbridge Communications, Editorial Director of Professionals in Law and an associate of The Smarty Train. Previously, he was the MD of TCS Advertising.