Belonging describes the need for people to feel connected to, cared for and caring of others around them at work. This should mean people feel valued, respected and supported at work.
East of England Ambulance Service NHS Trust (EEAST)
When Tom arrived in his role at EEAST, there had been a recent history of unacceptable behaviours within the staff team, including experiences of racism, ableism, homophobia, sexism and bullying. He explained how coming into the role, he knew that rebuilding trust with staff, so they knew that experiences like this would not be tolerated, would be the first step to ensure people felt a sense of belonging at work.
Tom took the view that "if you don't admit the problem, you won't solve the problem" and set about addressing the issues around racism, bullying and unacceptable behaviours head on.
One of the first actions was to commission an independent review into the working lives of ethnic minority staff at EEAST. While, at the same time, staff engagement exercises highlighted the extent and level of bullying and discrimination some staff had faced.
Once the problem was better understood, publicly acknowledged and apologised for, the trust was able to take action.
Firstly, EEAST ran an internal campaign to encourage more staff to speak up when they had experienced or observed unprofessional behaviours. At the same time, the trust took action to improve their internal HR processes. Too often in the past, complaints or concerns had gone unaddressed, leaving staff feeling like the organisation was unresponsive and that nothing would happen to tackle issues if they were raised.
Secondly, every two weeks, someone from EEAST's senior executive team holds an open forum "Q&A" session with staff, so that they can be questioned openly, making them more accountable and helping embed a culture of transparency. Separately, Tom reserves every Friday for visiting staff in different parts of his trust's region.
While these initial actions have delivered positive returns and improvements - for example, staff turnover within emergency operations at the trust has decreased from 14% to 8%, notably below the national average of 11.8% - Tom and his team are clear that there is still a long way to go to.
Alongside efforts to improve inclusion and address experiences of prejudice, EEAST has developed a broad universal wellbeing support offer as well as more specialist mental health support services like counselling and psychotherapy.
London Ambulance Service NHS Trust
Daniel Elkeles made similar points around the importance of inclusion, culture and modelling values.
LAS' newly developed core values are care, respect and teamwork.
Daniel and the leadership team co-produced these with staff. This was vital as it made staff feel that they co-owned them and really understood why they were important.
2,000 staff across LAS took part in the co-production exercise to develop the values. Staff were challenged to articulate what makes a day at work either good or bad. The results were that a good day involved feeling appreciated and part of a team, a bad day was the reverse. Care, respect and teamwork were identified as the core things you need to have a "good day".
The values are now very prominent in the trust's communications and the leadership team are mindful to model the values. The trust has also developed their five staff networks, focused on race equality, disabled staff, LGBTQ+ staff, women, and an emergent multi-faith network for all staff.
Daniel also chairs the Association of Ambulance Chief Executive's (AACE) national ambulance diversity and inclusion forum (NADIF). This group brings together equality diversity and inclusion leads from across the NHS ambulance sector and chairs of national peer support groups (BME, LGBT+, disability and women), to share peer learning and insight on their experience of promoting diversity and inclusion in their trusts.
LAS have also developed a range of measures to support staff wellbeing, which contribute to a sense of belonging. These range from low-level or general support, like healthy eating and physical activity advice to a psychotherapy service that can support staff experiencing post-traumatic stress disorder or other mental health crises. Alongside this the trust has a universal wellbeing offer and a peer support network.
Not only are wellbeing and mental health support offers like those offered by both LAS and EEAST good in and of themselves, but we also know that improving staff wellbeing and tackling burnout can have a positive impact on quality and safety.