Because you matter

Overview

MCHFT is proud to shout about why its a great place to work and the wide range of benefits available to those who chose to invest in their career at its organisation.

The curation of its employee value proposition brochure has been a trailblazer for the good practice of communicating rewards and benefits and importantly it includes the full employment offer available to existing and prospective staff. 

What the organisation faced

Alongside many other NHS trusts, the pandemic presented challenges for MCHFT, which refocussed attention away from reward and recognition activities. Monthly recognition schemes were temporarily paused, the annual celebration event switched to a virtual session, while other offerings lost their focus and became disjointed. 

Social media posts highlighted discontent and confusion around staff perceptions of what the trust had to offer, alongside misinformation being shared at times.

Staff were unclear of the schemes and initiatives that were available to them and there wasn’t a centralised place where their total reward offer was hosted. As a result, MCHFT’s reward and recognition questions scored low in its NHS Staff Survey results which spurred a need to make improvements. 

The trust wanted staff to be clear about what they get in return for choosing to work there and to build upon its shared purpose and connectedness with MCHFT. 

What the organisation did

The organisation begun research on employee value propositions and how this may be implemented within its organisation, alongside revitalising its long service and monthly recognition scheme and reintroducing an annual celebration event.

The trusts reward and recognition group brought a broad range of stakeholders together, inclusive of organisational development, payroll, learning and development, recruitment, HR, wellbeing, library services and equality, diversity, and inclusion colleagues to feed into the EVP project. This was a key step in the process as they ensured that a broad range of colleagues provided their perspective on the piece of work. 

The group initially researched various organisations with strong EVPs to understand their approach and how they communicated them online to staff. In a workshop-style format, the group met and picked out the key elements of the external organisations’ EVPs that stood out and what would resonate well within MCHFT. 

The trust also related its project plan to the CIPD’s research around EVP and trending information that highlighted the elements of an overall employment package that were important to staff currently. The most important piece of data that guided its thinking was that demographically different generations wanted different things from their employment. Therefore, is was important that its overall employment offer and how they presented it to staff was diverse and met the needs of a multigenerational workforce. 

The trust set out its current employment offer in a table and identified which elements of the overall offer would sit under the five key streams it wanted to use as a basis for the EVP booklet. The themes which closely linked to its values included:

• compensation
• careers 
• wellbeing 
• lifestyle benefits 
• culture.

Once the key themes were identified and its current employment offer was sorted into sections within each category, the reward and recognition group worked with their internal graphic design team to pull together the employee value proposition brochure. 

The basis of the trust’s EVP brochure was created using the NHS Employers benefit leaflet template which can be accessed and used by all NHS organisations. The trust customised the template by inserting their own branding. 

The brochure was launched via the trusts centralised communications and was published on the intranet and staff app. Following the publication of the internal facing document, MCHFT created an externally accessible version which they used at recruitment fairs and community events to market its benefits to increase attraction. 

All new starters receive a copy of their EVP brochure during their onboarding and are also signposted to its content within their corporate and local inductions. 

The trust is now making a keen effort to continue the raise awareness of the brochure to current staff via line manager discussions, attendance at team meetings and within their managers induction training. 

Results and benefits

Staff have fed back that the leaflet has been very beneficial and is helpful to have a single source signposting to the various schemes and offers available, as navigating the intranet to find these individually can be difficult and time consuming.

The organisation has seen a significant shift change in the volume and type of comments shared on social media posts and a significant reduction in misinformation and negative comments. Positive engagement has been noted in long-service award and monthly recognition schemes which has provided 284 Because You Matter awards since its launch and staff are regularly recognising their colleagues service awards online.

The trust has seen a significant improvement in it’s NHS Staff Survey scores moving from 5.92 in 2022 to 6.22 in 2023, however it is noted that metrics more specifically connected to the EVP aspect would be beneficial.

The trust is currently reviewing and updating the EVP ready for a relaunch in January 2025. As a part of this relaunch metrics will be developed to test awareness levels of the document between new starters and existing employees, as well as testing how useful staff found the documents from different perspectives and what would make it even better. This will provide clearer EVP intelligence which will help to inform future improvements.

Overcoming obstacles

The process was slowed down initially as the trust did not appoint one colleague to manage and coordinate the project. 

While there was a group of colleagues all passionate and engaged in the need to undertake the work, nobody was holding the ring on making it happen and driving it forward. It was important to ensure there was someone who was going to lead on the project and take it across the finish line.

Time was a barrier for all participants of the group, who were supporting alongside doing their day-to-day job. As such the initial review and collation of everything which was already in existence into one place was helpful, as it helped to limit the amount of new information and documentation that needed to be developed.

Takeaway tips

• Collaborate with a broad range of stakeholders to ensure you gain a wide perspective on what is important to staff to help you to build your own EVP.
• Have clear metrics and measurement for improvement from the start so your return of investment and the impact can be clearly identified.
• It is beneficial to create an internal and external copy of your EVP brochure to maximise its impact for current and prospective staff.
• Highlight your EVP during the onboarding process to ensure staff are aware of the employment offer from day one of their career within your organisation.

Further information

MCHFT's benefits brochure is available to view in full on its website.

For further details please contact Amy Oakes, Head of Learning and Organisational Development.