Tuesday 21st June 2011

It is not often that McDonalds and the NHS are mentioned in the same breath. But Derbyshire Community Health Services NHS Trust is punching above its weight by being shortlisted against McDonalds and other household names including Ladbrooks and the Cooperative Group in a national award for engaging with its employees.

Derbyshire Community Health Services NHS Trust has been named as one of only seven shortlisted organisations nationally - and the only NHS organisation - for its outstanding employee engagement strategy in the HR Excellence Awards 2011.


Rebecca Oakley (right), HR Manager for Derbyshire Community Health Services NHS Trust, chatting with catering assistant Dawn Grindey (left), and store keeper Brian Carter from Walton Hospital.

All the shortlisted organisations are being invited to London on 27th June for an awards ceremony at which the winners will be announced.

Amanda Rawlings, Director of Human Resources for Derbyshire Community Health Services NHS Trust, said: "We are delighted to be shortlisted. Good employee engagement has never been as important in the NHS, with all the recent changes. My team has worked incredible hard to get us to this point and team leaders across all departments have recognised the need to involve staff in how we run our organisation."

Edward Wyre, Events and Awards Manager, for HR Magazine which hosts the annual awards, said: "Congratulations to all those who made the shortlist. It was a tough year with a record number of entries, demonstrating the commitment to best practice within the HR field."

Derbyshire Community Health Services' staff of 5,000 work at more than 50 different sites across Derbyshire & Leicestershire in many different roles, so good employee engagement is a challenging task.

Some of the ways in which staff have been encouraged to play a part in the organisation's development are:

• Full involvement in developing DCHS' vision and values, and setting priorities for improvement
  
  
• Regular team talks, open to all staff, at different venues each month hosted by the chief executive
  
  
• Drop-in question and answer sessions each month run by a member of the executive team
  
  
• Teleconference briefing hosted by an executive director
  
  
• Back to the floor sessions, with all executives spending time with frontline staff
  
  
• Monthly newsletters, staff briefings and a daily updated intranet site. 

The Trust also won innovation funding to hold the first NHS conference in the East Midlands that staff could watch live on their computers via a web link and which enabled staff working on the frontline to post questions online that were asked live at the event.

Staff feedback to all the initiatives has been very positive. Some of the comments received in a recent survey showed that staff felt well informed of decisions on a step-by-step basis and that managers make sure they know what life is like at the frontline.

In the same survey, Derbyshire Community Health Services was also rated as the top NHS organisation in the East Midlands for staff recommending the Trust as a place to work or receive treatment, job satisfaction and for the fewest people looking for alternative jobs, according to the annual NHS Staff Survey results, published in March by the Care Quality Commission (CQC).

Amanda added: "Our engagement strategy from 2007 to 2011 was about building DCHS into the organisation it is today. As we go forward it is about continuing to ensure all our staff are DCHS and proud."

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