People Survey: Spotlight on East Midlands

The East Midlands region are working on streamlining communications and increasing engagement and Safe to Challenge.

Streamlining Communications and increasing engagement

We are about to launch our monthly Regional Briefing pack which has been produced alongside the BSC team in response to staff feedback on the amount of communication that goes out.

The briefing pack will be populated with key updates/event dates/policies from heads around the region, it will then be disseminated once a month to managers to help brief their teams with. The pack will serve as a point of reference throughout the month that can be referred to when needed.

Other feedback from staff included the difficulty they faced in being able to ascertain between critically urgent communications, communications that required action and communication that they could afford to read later. In response to this we’ve developed a colour coding system that will help staff prioritise how they engage with messages. The system will be applied to the monthly briefing pack, email communication and team communications for consistency.

We also aim to regularly ask for feedback from staff about the way we communicate, to ensure that it’s the most effective way to do so.

Safe to Challenge

Safe Space events in the East Midlands give staff with similar protected characteristics the opportunity to speak openly, and with confidence. Networks such as RISE, DAWN and PIPP will be invited to future events to help offer peer to peer support and advice to colleagues who may need it alongside having a learning culture in-built.

TUBU have been invited to events within the East Midlands to help promote their services of support and signposting in cases of bullying, harassment, and discrimination. Banter workshops created by PiPP network have also been organised to raise awareness of the harmful effects that seemingly innocent jokes and comments can have on a person with protected characteristics.

Similarly, our Let’s Talk Discrimination events hosted by our RPD and heads continue to raise awareness and offer staff the opportunity to learn about the different types of discrimination that exist, the onboarding of a new Equalities Officer will help to drive these sessions going forward and keep discrimination and its negative impacts in the forefront of colleagues’ minds.

Our RPD has hosted sessions with Network leads to allow staff with protected characteristics to share their experiences.

Finally, the Equity Assurance Council continue to review data to provide regional assurance that there are not disproportionate outcomes for staff or people on probation.