Embedding a healthy speaking up culture

The retention of our valued workforce continues to be a priority for NHS leadership, and renewed calls from the Long Term Workforce Plan have put focus on organisational culture. Having a speaking up and listening culture is critical to supporting a positive staff experience. Employers should embrace opportunities to listen to staff, time to reflect and learn when things go wrong. Working to foster a positive speaking up culture sets a foundation for a healthy working environment that supports workforce wellbeing. 

We know speaking up is not always easy, so creating an environment where staff feel safe to speak up - and confident that action will be taken - will help them feel psychologically safe and able to bring their whole selves to work. This will further support staff to be open and honest during their health and wellbeing conversations, which in turn will help to retain a healthy and happy workforce. 

Top tips for leaders

Compassionate leadership is the foundation for psychological safety and has a profound impact on the wellbeing of teams, organisations and systems. You can embody compassionate leadership by attending to, understanding, empathising with and helping those you lead. 

When you foster compassionate leadership, a just and learning culture can also embedded, creating an environment where speaking up can thrive when things go wrong because it is normal, everyday practice.

Ways you can embed a healthy speaking up culture:

• Listen and respond with curiosity rather than defensiveness. As leaders, it’s important to embody positive cultural changes and wellbeing practices.
• Demonstrate that every voice matters. Speak up yourself, encourage others to speak up and show you value speaking up as an opportunity to improve.
• Level up line managers to support staff to feel safe. Ensure everyone feels able to raise concerns and line managers feel able to support and signpost staff.
• Encourage wellbeing and speaking up teams to work collaboratively, creating an aligned strategy to embed a healthy speaking up culture.
• Measure the impact of change, share the learning with your teams and ask for feedback and opinions.
• Publicly acknowledge mistakes. Being open and honest with staff will encourage them to do the same and will promote a just and learning culture.
• Acknowledge that people face barriers to speaking up, understand where they exist, who they affect and develop actions to reduce them.

Top tips for line managers

Managers play a vital role in supporting senior leaders to set the right cultural tone for speaking up and handling speaking-up matters effectively.

Ways you can embed a healthy speaking up culture:

• Take training opportunities on listening, so staff feel heard and appreciated when speaking up. Thank workers who speak up and encourage curiosity about the status quo.
• Know who to signpost to. Find the avenues of support you can signpost staff to when seeking psychological or wellbeing support or to raise a concern. Invite your health and wellbeing champion or freedom to speak up (FTSU) guardian to a team huddle.
• Be aware of the barriers people may have when speaking up, including psychological safety and wellbeing. Gain an understanding of what these barriers may be and ways to overcome them.
• Shift the focus from who has spoken up to what is being said. Ask what can be learnt and acknowledge, if necessary, what has gone wrong. Move away from a blame culture and adopt a just and learning culture.
• Be a positive role model, if you have concerns of your own, speak up.
• Encourage team members to speak up in daily working life, including team meetings, supervisions and informal chats. Remind them speaking up doesn’t have to be a formal process. 
• Be mindful that some staff may not want to speak up to their line manager and this is not necessarily a reflection on you. Make sure your team knows who they can speak up to and share contact details.