North Wales-based Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board (BCUHB) has launched a new engagement and recognition platform for 17,000 employees, working across 38 hospitals, healthcare centres and offices.
The new mobile platform, provided by StaffConnect, is being rolled out to staff using a phased approach. This began in January 2019, being introduced to around 2,500 community-based employees and 4,500 staff working in district hospitals.
BCUHB plans to roll out the platform to all its employees working across Anglesey, Conwy, Denbighshire, Flintshire, Gwynedd and Wrexham.
The new platform is being implemented to replace email as the organisation’s primary internal communication tool. It has also been designed to encourage employee recognition, by integrating with BCUHB’s existing recognition programme and by promoting more informal peer-to-peer recognition. The platform further offers a way for hospitals and wards to share information more easily on care standards and service notices.
The introduction of the mobile platform is in response to an employee survey conducted in 2017 among 1,400 staff members. Face-to-face feedback found that many employees did not have access to the organisation’s digital resources and that some staff, such as nurses, did not often have the opportunity to monitor their emails. Furthermore, the survey found that staff were keen to embrace a mobile platform, to better reach BCUHB’s dispersed and non-desk-based working population, as well as being accessible from home or via a personal device.
Aaron Haley, communications officer at BCUHB, said: “Historically, information and [organisational] updates have mainly been shared through a weekly newsletter via email, to all staff. While that works for our desk-based staff, we know that there’s a big contingency of our workforce who just can’t find the time to get on to a computer as part of their working day.
“We wanted the new internal communications tool to be completely voluntary and we wanted to demonstrate our commitment to improving internal communications with a platform that meets the needs of all our employees, regardless of their role or location.”
To date, more than 3,700 employees have registered to use the new platform.
The platform further aligns to BCUHB’s ambitions to improve its essential services and leverage technology in the workplace.
“We are extremely pleased with how well the implementation of StaffConnect’s platform is going and have received very positive feedback from employees,” Haley added. “We know our people, but StaffConnect’s customer success programme provides an outside perspective on best practices for content and communication, which has been really helpful and valuable to us.
“We’re also encouraging staff to offer their input on how to do things better and how they see the platform working for them. I am highly enthusiastic about this two-way communications approach that will have a positive impact on NHS staff and workforce culture.”
