WORKPLACE PLANNING
Pandemic lessons: gauging how NHS staff work now
Sarah Miles, an associate director and Workplace Consultant advisory at Arcadis, and her colleague, Healthcare Advisory lead, Smriti Singh, discuss a recent project with an acute NHS Trust – including a survey of more than 7,000 staff there – to discover how the pandemic has changed perceptions of hospital workspace, and ‘how we can start to implement change, both in physical space, and also in cultural views of hospital roles’.
NHS estates have historically been under- funded, and we have known for years that the working environment for frontline staff is far from optimal. While the pandemic has been an incredibly difficult time, our work shows that the changes in working patterns that have been brought on by it have a real potential for improving working environments for all staff, including frontline personnel. Exactly how this is done will vary from hospital to hospital, but the best starting point is, of course, asking staff. Within this article we describe how we
worked through this issue with a Trust to discover exactly how the pandemic had changed perceptions of hospital workspace, and how we can start to implement change, both in physical space, and also in cultural views of hospital roles. We used Arcadis’ Colleague Survey
to reach all 7,000+ members of staff within this Trust to offer them an opportunity to air their views on how they work. The survey focused on working facilities within the hospitals, remote and homeworking experiences,
and wellbeing support, and provided fantastic insight into staff thinking about their working patterns and environment.
Lack of staff space There was a clear trend in the findings around the lack of staff space, such as staff rooms or breakout areas, and the effect this had on staff morale. Wellbeing in the workplace was highlighted, with facilities such as spaces where staff could ‘decompress’ after a difficult shift high on the list of what was considered important. The results were presented to the Trust,
and working personas were created. Respondees were split into the persona category they most aligned too. These personas were used to review how much space was actually needed to provide sufficient working environments for the staff, which led to identifying space that could be repurposed. Arcadis is delighted to be working with a number of Trusts in this manner to improve staff experience and wellbeing through providing a better working environment.
What we did – approach to the survey Whilst working with the aforementioned Trust, we distributed our bespoke survey to 7,000+ staff, both clinical and non- clinical. In order to prepare the survey, our team set up a number of one-to-one interviews with representatives from all departments. These representatives also varied considerably in seniority, which enabled us to gather honest insight around how space within the hospital is used, how that use changed from department to department, and how each department perceived each other’s needs. This view of the workspace through the staff’s eyes was very revealing, and allowed us to build a survey that addressed critical issues being flagged. The survey asked about a range of
topics, including commuting, working patterns (pre-COVID, during the pandemic, and anticipated post-COVID), support staff facilities such as refreshment areas and staff rooms, desk use, home working experiences, sustainability, and wellbeing in the workplace. The survey
Working Locations (all locations, all responses, on average) Pre-March ’20 March ’20 - June ’21 Post-June ’21
The extent to which the pandemic changed the working location for the staff at the acute Trust surveyed. 58 Health Estate Journal May 2022
© Arcadis
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