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EQUALITY & DIVERSITY


Achieving a better gender balance in healthcare FM


Rina Pandya, head of People Transformation and Culture at NHS Property Services, discusses the importance of promoting the success of women in healthcare estates and facilities management – traditionally a male-dominated sector.


The fundamental role of the NHS is to provide care for our population, to help maintain good health. This selfless drive to care for others is what motivates most NHS staff to come to work each day. The staff at NHS Property Services (NHSPS) – a government-owned company that manages approximately 12% of the NHS estate – are no different. We work closely with our partners to create safe, efficient, sustainable, and modern healthcare environments, so that every patient can get the care they need in the best place for them. We are proud that the work we do enables our medical colleagues to deliver excellent care for patients. To deliver this, we must ensure the good health of our own organisation. As head of People Transformation and Culture at NHSPS – an organisation comprising almost 6,000 people – I know that our colleagues are our most important asset. Managing a disparate workforce across 7,000 properties


comes with many challenges, so it is important that we find ways to bring people together and ensure that we have an inclusive culture. One of the ways we have done this, for example, is through introducing Yammer, a corporate social network, to better connect and inform our workforce. It is the nature of our teams that drove the launch of our People Strategy in June 2020 to ‘get, grow and keep great people’, which aligns with the NHS 2022/2023 priorities on workforce investment, and includes strengthening the compassionate and inclusive culture needed to deliver outstanding care.


‘Fine-tuning our diversity approach’ Within our workforce there is much diversity, and a core part of our people strategy is refreshing and fine-tuning our approach here. In the last year, for example, we have created a Diversity and Inclusion forum sponsored by a member


of the executive team to engage with the business, and ensure that the colleague experience is a positive one – aligned with our values and behaviours of treating people fairly, creating a climate of trust and inclusion. We have also developed a broader three-year plan to drive diversity and inclusion, including providing more training to colleagues, and undertaking a review of our recruitment and selection processes to attract more people from under-represented backgrounds. We have appointed Mark Lomas as our first Non- executive director for People, Culture, Diversity & Inclusion, demonstrating our commitment to our People Strategy, ‘Get, Grow and Keep Great People’, and our Diversity & Inclusion strategy, over the coming months and years. Through this, we aspire to be sector-leading in our promotion of diversity and inclusion practices.


Working towards gender parity One key part of our diversity strategy is empowering and supporting women, and working towards gender parity. Research shows that gender diversity within the workplace maximises the success of organisations, and improves employee satisfaction, engagement, and retention.1 In the UK, this has been increasingly recognised – the proportion of women in senior management positions grew to 32% in 2022, the highest number ever recorded, and in line with global estimates.2


to reverse the important gains that have been made over the last decade – the impacts of the pandemic and response and recovery policies have been shown to have been disproportionately felt by women.3


However, COVID-19 threatened


This is why, for me, empowering


Figure 1: ‘Our people in numbers’, from the NHS Property Services Annual Report and Accounts 2021.


women in our organisation is a core area of focus. Across the multiple roles offered at NHSPS, certain departments – such as construction and facilities management – have been dominated by men. As part of the ‘People’ team, I have focused on challenging these traditions, and empowering women to step into these


August 2022 Health Estate Journal 61


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