Message for NHS Orkney staff from CEO, Laura Skaife-Knight: iMatter results

Message for NHS Orkney Staff-  iMatter results – some small green shoots…. but much more to do

Dear colleague

This week we received our iMatter results for NHS Orkney and our results show there are green shoots emerging and some progress to report, though it reminds us of how far we have to go and the work still to do.

69% of you responded to the survey this year and had your say; 10% more than last year.

Our Employee Engagement Index score is 75 (74 last year) and your overall experience of working here (scale of 0-10) is 6.5 (6.4 last year).

For the questions about your experience of working in your team and with your direct line manager our scores improved in 6 out of the 7 questions (staying the same in one area). The areas of improvement include you feeling your direct line manager cares about your health and wellbeing and your confidence and trust in your line manager.

And for the questions about how it feels working in this organisation, our scores improved in 8 out of the 9 questions (and deteriorated slightly in one area). The areas we have improved are summarised below.

So – overall, what do our results tell us? They tell us we are moving in the right direction. Among the positive movements we have seen are:

1. You feel better informed, indicating communication has improved

2. More of you would be happy for a friend/relative to access our services

3. Many more of you feel Board members are sufficiently visible (highest score increase of any question 2024 v 2023 - by 8 points)

4. Many more of you have confidence and trust in Board members

With regard to the areas we need to give much greater focus and where there has either been deterioration or little movement in our scores – these include:

1. You feeling involved in decision-making (in your area of work and in the organisation generally)

2. You feeling confident to safely raise concerns, including those about safety, and confident they will be followed up and responded to (the loop being closed)

Next steps:

1. All line managers have received their individual team reports (except for the nine teams who didn’t qualify for a report – these teams will receive their Directorate report and be able to complete an action plan)

2. An 8-week action planning period has started. To keep this exercise as simple as possible, this year we will be asking teams to focus on identifying a minimum of one area for improvement. Our People and Culture Team will share more information in the days to come, including the support available for this process

3. To help us to ensure we focus on the right areas to further improve your experience of working here, we’ll be having further conversations with you and seeking your views on what some of the answers to the questions mean to you – specifically what would need to be different and would you need to see to have more good days at work

4. We will share in the coming weeks our organisational priorities for this year, which include creating a staff experience programme to co-ordinate our ongoing response to your feedback recognising we have more to do in all of these areas: (1) your health and wellbeing (2) value and recognising you (3) better involving you in decision-making (4) listening to and acting on your feedback and (5) living our values of open and honest, respect and kindness

These latest results are evidence of further small steps forward. We remain absolutely committed to further improving your experience of working at NHS Orkney, and we will continue to focus on doing ever more to put people first in all we do.

If you have any questions about iMatter and the next steps – please don’t hesitate to contact our People and Culture Team.

Best wishes

Laura Skaife-Knight

Chief Executive