Projects

The Family Nurse Partnership (FNP) programme is well established in the USA, where there is a body of evidence to demonstrate its success. Family Nurses work with disadvantaged families, specifically during pregnancy and the child’s first two years. The FNP National Unit in the Department of Health licenses NHS organisations in England to participate in the programme. IES was commissioned to find out more about the Family Nurse workforce, via a survey, focus groups, interviews, comparisons with national data, and pen pictures.

IES advised Mersey Care on how it might reduce its absence levels in its high security unit. Mersey Care NHS Trust wished to review its occupational sickness rate to examine the causes of absence and potential ways of reducing it. IES was asked to assist. IES helped the Trust understand its absence issues through: interviews with key managers, HR staff, the Occupational Health manager and staff side representatives considering Trust policies, procedures on absence and related matters examining workforce statistics on absence, employee engagement, etc Drawing on work done elsewhere in the health system and previous IES research, we wrote a report that offered a summary of findings and a set of suggestions for improvement of the absence situation. We also presented the results of our work to the Trust’s Executive Committee and HR community.

The Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons (RCVS) asked IES to conduct its 2014 surveys of the veterinary surgeon (VS) and veterinary nurse (VN) professions. The surveys, launched in January 2014, collected data about the working lives and attitudes to work of people in these professions. IES has conducted several previous VS and VN surveys, enabling trends over time to be analysed and reported.

For the second time, IES is teaming up with Employment Research Ltd to carry out a survey of the Bar profession. Half of the barristers who are registered to practise in the UK have received an invitation (via email or post) to participate in a survey exploring different aspects of their working lives. The responses of self-employed barristers (ie those working in chambers or as sole practitioners) will be compared to those of employed barristers (eg in the Crown Prosecution Service). Different practice areas will also be compared. The results of this 2013 survey will be compared with those of the first survey in 2011, enabling us to start monitoring trends on behalf of the Bar Standards Board and Bar Council.

NHS Employers run a series of workshops to support the Quality, Innovation, Productivity and Prevention (QIPP) workforce agenda. IES delivered an evidence-based, practical session on how to work with individuals’ strengths to build employee engagement and workforce productivity.

Over the past two years, IES has been running short events – we call them ‘Knowledge Knibbles’ – for line managers in two London boroughs, Lewisham and Greenwich. These have covered two topics: strengths-based management and engaging behaviours. The first event introduced the ideas of strengths-based management and enabled managers to understand their own strengths; they were also given some tools to help their team members to deploy their strengths effectively. The second shared the results of IES’s research study, ‘The Engaging Manager’; participants used IES’s assessment tool to rate their own people management behaviours and decide which engaging and disengaging manager types they most resembled.

IES ran two surveys on behalf of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons. These surveys, launched in January 2010, were to find out more about the working lives and working patterns of veterinary surgeons and veterinary nurses. They also explored the views of these two groups about their professions. The information gathered will help the RCVS assess how veterinary services might be affected by changes in demand, by increasing numbers of veterinary students and veterinary nurses, and by factors such as career breaks, part time working, and working outside the profession.

IES helped the Architects Registration Board to carry out their first ever all-staff attitude survey, as well as reviewing the competitiveness and appropriateness of their current rewards package. The survey involved a written questionnaire and all staff also participated in focus group discussions. The study revealed very high levels of employee engagement and pride in the organisation, and general appreciation of the total rewards package. However, a number of changes to pay, bonus and pension arrangements are currently being considered in order to continue and enhance staff motivation in the future.

IES worked with NHS London (the Strategic Health Authority for inner and outer London) to scope its future activity in the area of employee engagement. NHS London wanted to maintain the engagement momentum, following the Work Foundation’s study to define engagement and arrive at an engagement standard. IES was asked to focus on the best ways of engaging employees to deliver a quality service to patients and customers within the trusts that fall within the remit of NHS London. The work would then be taken forward by the London Partnership Forum, consisting of representatives from employers, trades unions and NHS London.

The NHS Institute for Innovation and Improvement (NHSI) is the body that tasked with bringing about sustainable improvement within the NHS. The ‘No Delays’ team focused on how delays to patient waiting times (from referral to being seen by a consultant) can be reduced to a maximum 18 weeks. This meant organisational change, and IES, working with the Department of Organizational Psychology at Birkbeck College, was asked to identify tools that help managers tackle this process. The tools ranged from ways to clarify the particular source, location or nature of a delay, through to ways to gain buy-in from the team and allay individuals’ fears about what any changes may mean for their own well-being.