Keep on (keeping on): 2024 Staff Survey staff engagement scores
In this blog, Steven Weeks, policy manager at NHS Employers, shares his initial thoughts on the staff engagement scores taken from the 2024 NHS Staff Survey.
With the 2024 NHS Staff Survey scores remaining stable and consolidating on the progress made in 2023, it perhaps demonstrates the need, in the words of Curtis Mayfield, for the NHS to "keep on keeping on".
Undoubtably, this is a positive achievement in a challenging context, but there remains plenty of scope for increasing engagement, while advocacy levels remain well below their pre-pandemic peak.
Staff engagement stable
As with much of the wider survey, staff engagement remained stable in 2024, maintaining the progress built in 2023. However, there are dimensions of staff engagement where scores are relatively lower.
Staff engagement is one of the key themes in the annual survey and results were broadly similar in 2024 at 6.85 when compared to 6.89 in 2023. The 2023 figure was a significant increase on the 2022 levels (6.79), although even this was still below the pre-pandemic peak of 7.05 in 2020.
Motivation, involvement and advocacy scores
The staff engagement indicator is made of three sub scores (motivation, involvement and advocacy). These were broadly stable, although there were some movements within individual questions.
The motivation score remained steady at 6.96 and this high score is due to the very positive responses to questions on staff looking forward to going to work and being enthusiastic about their jobs, despite the latter question falling slightly from 69.09 per cent in 2023 to 68.05 per cent in 2024. While this is still a relatively high figure, it is a concern that enthusiasm has slipped, although this is likely due to the range of pressures on staff.
The involvement theme score has also remained roughly the same with no significant shifts in any of the individual questions that make up the score. There continues to be a high scores for involvement at team level (70.83 per cent) and making suggestions (73.22 per cent), but lower scores the question on confidence that staff are able to make improvements happen.
The advocacy score remains stable after an increase last year. This was an improvement on 2022 score, but it remains well below pre-pandemic levels. Of respondents 60.80 per cent would recommend the NHS as a place to work, while 64.28 per cent would recommend their organisation as a place to be treated.
What next?
NHS Employers has a staff engagement network which shares learning on improving staff engagement. Over next few months we will be exploring the learning from the most improved organisations and will focus on staff involvement.
If you would like to join the network or if you have a local example to share, please get in touch by emailing me.
