The 6 questions that determine weather staff will stay or leave
The Wellbeing Support Team handook has been my labour of love over the last month. I have been trying to create something that expresses my hopes for our team, how we work, and how we live our values. This week I proudly gave copies to our new team as we welcomed Zoe and Vanessa who started with us on Monday. Michelle and Vanessa are the two coaches in our team, and their role is to support the Wellbeing Teams to flourish, self-manage and deliver compassionate, person-centred safe care. Our hope is that by doing this, we are able to keep our colleagues working with us, and have good staff retention.
The Research by Gallup (featured in the book First Break all the Rules) has identified 12 questions that measure employee engagement and six that particularly relate to staff retention. If colleagues feel able to answer ‘yes’ to these questions, then they are more likely to stay with the organisation and be productive. These are:
- Do I know what is expected of me at work?
- Do I have the materials and equipment I need to do my work right?
- At work, do I have the opportunity to do what I do best every day?
- In the last 7 days, have I received recognition or praise for doing good work?
- Does someone at work seem to care about me as a person?
- Is there someone at work who encourages my development?
In our Wellbeing Support Team handbook I have thought about how our different roles work together to try and make it more likely that people can say ‘yes’.
How can we enable everyone to say ‘yes’ to these?
| 1.     Do I know what is expected of me at work? | The Practice Coach ensures that people know what is expected of them around delivering person-centred, safe compassionate care.
The Team Coach ensures that people know what is expected of them in relation to how they work together, self-organise, and focus on their individual wellbeing and that of their team. We have a set of ‘Progress’ documents that make this clear and help people to check how well they are doing, as well as a team handbook that helps with how to deliver this. The personalised induction process, developed by both coaches and co-created with individuals, helps people to know what they are focusing on and what success looks like at different milestones (e.g. 3 months and 6 months). All team members give feedback and recognition to each other.
|
| 2.     Do I have the materials and equipment I need to do my work right?
|
We provide smartphones for people to communicate and record their communication together via Slack, as well as through Zoom.
The Practice Coach makes sure people have Personal Protective Equipment. We learn about anything else that people may need through weekly team meetings. |
| 3.     At work, do I have the opportunity to do what I do best every day?
|
We learn about what matters to people and their skills and interests during induction, and this is recorded via one-page profiles and individual histories and kept in the person-centred team plan. The Team Coach ensures that the person-centred team plan is created and updated (through the team’s Reporter/Recorder).
We ask people to match their skills to roles within the team.
|
| 4.     In the last 7 days, have I received recognition or praise for doing good work?
|
The Practice Coach and the Team Coach focus on this, to ensure that everyone has weekly, personalised, specific recognition and feedback.
We use a 5:1 ratio of positive feedback to comments and conversations about how people can improve. The Wellbeing Leader and Community Circle Connector provide additional recognition and feedback, and the Coaches ensure that people have feedback each week from them.
|
| 5.     Does someone at work seem to care about me as a person? |  The Practice Coach and Team Coach ensure that this happens, and that team meetings reflect how we care about people as individuals.
Each person has a Buddy, and they spend an hour a month together during which they support one another, reflect together and challenge each other. Creating Memorable & Meaningful Moments and giving Love Notes are examples of how we do this.
|
| 6.    Is there someone at work who encourages my development?
|
Everyone has an Individual Development Plan, which reflects how we care about people’s development. The Individual Development Plan includes how the person wants to focus on their wellbeing, their skills and competence (performance goals) and their career.
Both coaches support people to develop and review their plans. Buddies also have a role in encouraging each other’s development. |
Therefore, the essence of the Coaches’ roles is to:
- Show that we understand people as individuals and care about them
- Give recognition and feedback, continually, so that people experience this at least once a week
- Encourage and support team members’ development, informally and formally
This is part of the 10 promises we make to team members.
The Coaches have the primary responsibility to deliver on these, and we see this as being of equal importance to delivering person-centred, safe, compassionate care. We measure how well we are doing through Peakon scores every 3-4 months.
I know that recruitment and retention are one of the biggest challenges in social care, we have not got all the answers to this, but I wanted to share what we are trying, and why these 6 questions matter.
