Amanda Heaton, head of Human Resources at Warrington and Halton Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust explains how the Trust implemented a new way of handling grievances.

Like all NHS employees, the experience of staff at Warrington and Halton Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust was affected by the extreme pressures and disruption caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.      

There had been sharp increases in Employee Relations case work around grievances and complaints at the Trust, which employs more than 4,000 staff across three hospitals.     

It was a situation not helped by the nationwide pause on Employment Tribunals (except when it came to those cases where there was obviously going to be a detriment to individuals from a delay).     

In this way, minor disagreements — mostly the result of a general state of tiredness, frayed nerves and impatience — were being bottled-up and relationships could deteriorate over time. When the tribunal service resumed, more employees were thinking in terms of making use of formal processes.     

The issue for the Trust was how to deal with conflict in more informal ways the normal approach: de-escalating situations without need to make use of HR and management time or resorting to a tribunal.     

Creating a compassionate culture was one pillar of the Trust’s new overarching people strategy. As part of this, the HR team started to think about what could be done differently to help people facing problems with relationships, with disagreements and grievances, at the earliest stage possible. How could staff be encouraged to make more use of open communications and systems of earlier resolutions, and in ways that would help everyone working for the Trust?

Inclusivity

It was important to ensure that the workplace culture was inclusive — making sure everyone had a voice, including those employees who might not be in a Trade Union.

At the same time that means people being able to appreciate different perspectives. Do I really know what younger recruits, the school-leavers, think about their role and experiences? The Trust wanted to help support people so they had influence and control over their working lives, through upskilling and empowerment.

Workplace relationships specialist CMP was chosen as a partner for the ER initiative, as the organisation that had worked with NHS Lothian on culture change, a Trust which has since become recognised as high-performing in the area.

Process not programme

Warrington and Halton also had its own ideas on how the culture change could best be delivered: not through one particular programme but a full package and process. 

This included a mix of both pre-existing accredited courses and a bespoke programme designed around the Trust’s objectives, the tried and tested along with the tailored. 

A cohort of 16 staff have been trained through the ILM-accredited Professional Workplace Investigator programme, a comprehensive six-day course providing trainees with all the information and skills needed for any internal investigation (such as understanding investigations policy and procedures; communication skills and impartiality; information gathering and management and analysis). 

Another 16 have been trained as Professional Workplace Mediators (also ILM accredited), helping them to both develop a theoretical understanding needed to run mediations, as well as practice core skills.     
 

Employees were selected to take part from across the range of functions, both clinical staff (nurses and physiotherapists for example), and non-clinical (from estates, finance, IT, operations management and HR), and given personalised coaching, mentoring and feedback throughout their training.     

The Trust wanted accredited courses to make sure there was a strong foundation of trust and confidence, both among the staff trained and the people who’d make use of their skills. They needed to know they could bring about positive change, raise standards, and be comfortable in dealing with difficult situations, ask the difficult questions and help employees feel able to open up and share personal thoughts and experiences.     

The numbers involved were chosen carefully. The Trust needed to have enough of a pool of mediators and investigators that there wouldn’t be any bottlenecks, and no problems with juggling workloads. At the same time, it also needed to ensure there would be enough work, so the trained people could keep skills up without needing refreshers, the role would stay familiar.     

Bespoke management training around informal conflict resolution and handling difficult conversations has been designed between the Trust and CMP.  This element has been focused on empowering line managers to intervene and deal with conflict at low levels; giving them the skills to have constructive conversations and share perspectives. In other words, helping them to walk in another person’s shoes.

Pilots were run in February/March 2024 with plans to roll the programme out to between 100 and 125 managers in the first year. The training will now be made available to all managers, as well as HR and Organisational Development staff and employees acting as ‘Freedom to Speak Up’ champions. 

Success

One of the most obvious initial successes has been the motivation and enthusiasm among mediators. The trained group meet up regularly to discuss how the service and process is working in general, sharing lessons and experiences as a form of peer learning. 

The mediators have initiated and driven the setting up of a mediation portal on the staff Intranet: a bundle of content around mediation — including a Q&A, case studies and introductions to the people involved — that helps to make mediation more understood, informal and approachable as a service for everyone.

They have also set up a series of informal events and drop-in sessions, giving staff the chance to chat about what mediation is like, and give some initial advice on dealing with minor conflicts.  

The informal sessions mean access to a less formal route than talking to HR about problems, which in itself can feel like a major escalation of a situation. 

The Trust makes sure the mediators have their own separate identity from their day job, so even if they’re in HR they have a different staff badge; they have a separate email address and phone number.

Staff have given very positive feedback on the trainers and the consultants we’ve worked with.

The mediators in particular have talked about how important and transferable the skills they’ve developed are, so useful for communications in general, in terms of listening skills and empathy. 

The conversation skills learnt, being self-aware, curious, conscious of body language and not just having an instant response to the words, is useful for every situation, for team meetings and project management — especially with more staff working remotely. 

Good conversations are critical for the workplace culture and the workforce experience as a whole.

Where to now?

The Trust is monitoring the impact of introducing an informal resolutions culture in a number of ways. 

This includes metrics around the volume of ER cases, the stages they started at and then progressed to; how many employees are using mediation; and the feedback from those involved in mediation; as well as the implications for absence, attendance and retention. 

The issue will be a focus in the next staff feedback survey.  Now we’re thinking about making all the positive changes sustainable. That might include looking at the use of group mediation, such as Neutral Assessment. 

We’re always thinking about employee needs, what they want, rather than pushing through an HR agenda. So we’ll be looking at more engagement with employees and letting them drive next steps in partnership.