“Only organisations that truly engage and inspire their employees produce world class levels of innovation, productivity and performance.”
‘Engaging for Success’, MacLeod Review on Employee Engagement
July 2009
“Engaging leadership does, in fact, predict productivity. We found that this style of leadership increases employees’ motivation, job satisfaction and commitment, while reducing job-related stress. Leadership skills
alone do not have such a transformational effect.”
Professor Beverley Alimo-Metcalf, People Management
July 2008
Employee engagement will be vital to our success and aspiration to become one of the best NHS organisations in the country. To meet the challenges of providing the safest, highest quality and most efficient levels of patient care, we will need to harness the talents and capabilities of all of our staff, through inspiring and enlightened leadership.
Over a period of some months, we asked a wide cross-section of our staff what our qualities as ‘one team’ should be. The answers that came back have helped to develop The South Manchester Way – the way we do things around here. These are qualities and attributes that staff themselves see as important. They will guide how we continue to improve the services we offer and meet the challenges we face and
underpin everything we do.
Based on the theory that the most effective way of learning is by teaching others, we are encouraging staff to take responsibility for cascading and explaining the messages of The South Manchester Way to their colleagues and teams.
The five statements explaining The South Manchester Way are:
Why do we need The South Manchester Way?
The public sector and the NHS face a variety of challenges. In the very near future we will have to meet the growing expectations of our patients and their carers and families, whilst at the same time striving to use every single pound of our funding to be the most efficient we can possibly be. We will have to ensure that our services remain safe and offer a consistent high quality of care.
Over a number of months, led by the Chief Executive, we have talked to members of our team about the challenges they face, the solutions they see to these challenges and the behaviours we need to adopt to deliver these solutions. Out of these discussions have come a set of attributes – The South Manchester Way – which will define how we meet the challenges we face.
Having The South Manchester Way will define the approach we need to take. It says that we must expect all team members to be part of the solution to these challenges, through involvement and a shared understanding of different perspectives. It will allow leaders to be clear about the expectations they can have of their teams and team members to be clear about the expectations they can have of their leaders – together creating One Talented Team.
Creating this framework will allow us to challenge each other to move forward together, and to create a hospital we can all be proud of.