People Strategy

• Develop and monitor the on-boarding experience of staff newly recruited to the Company.
• Improve engagement and staff motivation for existing staff by addressing and improving areas highlighted by our staff survey and ensuring that improvement plans are developed and supported.
• Improve our staff survey results and introduce pulse checks/mini surveys for the organisation at regular intervals to gauge how staff are feeling and pick up issues/themes at an early stage.
• Get the basics right by ensuring all of our staff have the right tools and equipment to do their jobs effectively.
• Make sure all staff have a voice.
• Introduce ‘Spotlight awards to celebrate individual good practices.

This means that:

We will look to introduce a ‘buddy scheme’ for new recruits. Currently Estates, Facilities and Procurement lose 12% of new recruits within the first 6 months of employment.

We can improve this by recruiting colleagues whose personal values are aligned to those of the organisation to create a culture of continuous improvement and an organisation that our colleagues are proud to be part of.

The Company expects colleagues to display behaviours that represent its values and those colleagues that work hard and perform well will be offered incentives.

We know from our staff survey that line managers can do better with how they interact with staff. We are already talking to staff about the results and have action plans that are being shared with them.

In addition to the formal channels set out above, ‘listening groups’ have been set up to give representatives from all staff groups a mechanism to talk freely to the senior management team about issues that directly affect them. The groups cover weekend and evening staff and a “you said, we did” infographic is being developed to share with staff.

We will also seek staff feedback by developing our own bespoke staff survey and responses from these will help us improve how we lead, manage and support our staff The Staff Engagement Forum currently in place for non-union colleagues will continue and run alongside the company’s more formal consultation mechanisms.

We will act more quickly on issues raised by staff; feedback is that we do not always do this. 

Responsibility for health and wellbeing at work belongs to both employers and employees. The key factors that determine whether staff will have a positive or negative relationship with work are:

• Whether employees are involved in organisational issues and decisions and feel empowered and involved in our organisation.
• Job design and versatility of role.
• Appropriateness and volume of workload.
• Availability and acceptability of flexible working.
• Awareness of occupational health issues and encouragement to invest in themselves and their wellbeing.

This means that:

It is recognised that staff want greater flexibility in their working lives and wherever possible the company will aim to provide this, within the parameters of providing a patient centred service. Staff morale is a key focus and we need to respond proactively to recruitment and retention challenges by a more flexible reward offering including offering a range of working patterns that will be attractive to prospective employees.

We want the experience of working for CHS to be a positive one which has a positive impact on the health and wellbeing of our employees. The Company will focus on improving the health and wellbeing of our staff in order to help reduce sickness absence, targeting the increasing number of staff who report being unwell due to stress related issues. It should be noted that the majority of stress reported is outside the work environment and in conjunction with Occupational Health we will sign post staff to support available on a range of issues such as debt counselling, smoking cessation and screening programmes.

We will take positive action on the wellbeing of our staff and utilise the services provided by the Trust’s Occupational Health and Wellbeing service by promoting physical activity and supporting colleagues with a range of initiatives including resilience and stress management training as well as access to mindfulness programmes, a confidential counselling service, ensuring flu vaccination take up and conducting workplace assessments. We will participate in national wellbeing days and mental health first aid programmes.

The Company remains committed to promoting healthy eating and will ensure all food outlets in our hospitals offer a range of healthy food and snacks and the company will continue to support the ‘incredible edible’ and ‘trees for wellbeing’ initiatives.

We will look to introduce a smoke free environment and have rest areas for staff wherever possible. The Occupational Health Service’s comprehensive wellbeing handbook will be issued to all new starters in the organisation as part of their local induction process.

• Attract high performing staff and reward colleagues who display the expected behaviours and perform well.
• Reward staff appropriately for improved productivity and efficiency and incentivise staff to create commercial value.
• Develop a clear and flexible approach to alternative working patterns to accommodate the changing needs of our people.
• Promote a more agile based model of working.
• Provide meaningful appraisals for all and development opportunities for staff who wish to progress their careers.
• Consider an ‘Itchy feet’ programme.
• Provide apprenticeships as the norm across the whole range of our services.
• Offer flexible retirement/wind down options for staff.
• Keep abreast of external influences on our workforce ie; Brexit.

This means that:

We will identify talent within our workforce and support individuals to progress their careers.

We will help our staff to develop within their roles and increase their knowledge recognising that a successful business needs experienced staff that can be role models and share learning.

We will consider programmes to make it easier for staff to move round internally and experience a ‘taste’ of other roles The Company will utilise the apprenticeship levy to map to new role development and leadership programmes.

Staff will participate fully in a meaningful annual appraisal which is not seen as a tick box exercise, we will check on this by taking feedback from staff as part of our ‘pulse checks’.

Mandatory and job specific training will be provided to support staff to practice safely.

We will develop approaches that are flexible and attempt to work with people to balance work and home demands at different times in their lives.

We will look to experienced long serving colleagues to play a key role in the development of new staff and we will offer flexible retirement options where possible for staff nearing retirement.

Colleagues from the EU are an important asset to our workforce and Brexit implications mean uncertainty for them. We will support colleagues by providing information and guidance to assist with any questions or concerns they may have.

We aspire to develop a culture where diversity and inclusion is embedded in our attitudes and actions.

We believe the diverse voices of our colleague should be celebrated, we will aim to tackle any barriers that might prevent colleagues from bringing their authentic self to work and we are committed to nurturing a secure and supportive environment where everyone is valued for their contribution.

Our approach complies with the Equality Act 2010 and we commit to making sure there is no unjustified discrimination in the recruitment, retention, training and development of colleagues.

We will strive to:

• Improve individual awareness of cultural difference, including unconscious bias and embrace ideas to improve diversity in recruitment and development processes.
• Work positively with staff from diverse groups to enable them to achieve their potential and ensure tailored development plans are created.
• Support all our people in undertaking their roles to work without fear of discrimination from patients or staff of any form and to be confident that discrimination will be tackled.
• To develop a culture where all staff feel able to call out discrimination.

This means that:

We will promote and value difference in order to attract, recruit, retain and support our staff and be more reflective of the communities we serve.

Our values will focus on respect and acceptance of our differences and we will ensure employees from all backgrounds have equal access to career opportunities and receive fair treatment in the workplace.

Our recruitment training will look at how prejudice and unconscious bias can encroach into the selection process and how we negate this.

We will where possible include a BAME colleague in the recruitment process for posts at grade G or above.

CHS colleagues have access to CHFT’s LGBTQ and BAME networks, social groups and events. For up to date information on both please see CHFT’s intranet pages. CHFT will look to create a forum for colleagues with a disability starting in summer 2019 and other networks will follow.

• Be innovative around changing tasks and responsibilities.
• Promote a culture of service redesign, developing workforce models that are fit for the future.
• Work across organisational boundaries and keep in mind the commercial context when considering change.
• Build internal capacity and capability to engage teams to redesign their workforce and plan for our long term future.
• Be cognisant of our competitors; growing digitalisation and changing workforce profiles.
• Develop team and organisational planning tools to facilitate our workforce needs, learning from external good practice.

Like many organisations we are facing very challenging times with increased demand, reduced staff availability and financial pressures.

We need to be more flexible in our approach to recruitment and better at planning our future workforce, predicting future challenges and developing innovative plans as part of our business planning cycle.

It is important to recruit the right people into the right places with the right skills to ensure that our succession planning is credible and accurate. Our aim is to have more fluid job roles that offer flexibility and job satisfaction whilst meeting the needs of all our services.

We will utilise more robust workforce planning methodology to assist our annual business planning cycles.

In addition we will consider recognised and available tools such as the Calderdale Framework, to support teams to understand what they currently do, what tasks could be done differently and what tasks could be done by different people.