BEE WHO YOU WANT TO BE - CONNECT HEALTH AND TAILORED THINKING

What most impressed the judges about Tailored Thinking was the HR consultancy’s distinctly innovative and evidence-based approach to the job crafting initiative delivered for Connect Health, which “improved working lives across the organisation” and left “an impressive legacy”.

In an extremely competitive market for talent, the largest UK provider of integrated community musculoskeletal physiotherapy needed help delivering a personalised people experience that would make it an employer of choice.

In response to these retention, attraction and engagement goals, Tailored Thinking devised the Job Crafting Conversations scheme – known by participants as ‘Bee who you want to be’.

Taking into account the organisation’s goal to move to more frequent staff appraisals, Tailored Thinking supported Connect’s HR team to develop a business case for empowering employees to shape their own roles.

A three-pronged approach was taken. Pilots involving more than 60 employees across three teams (HR, IT and clinicians) took place, explaining to employees: “We want you to explore ways to change, improve and personalise aspects of your job, shaping your work to make the best use of your skills and strengths.”

All participants (100 per cent) endorsed the use of job crafting, and 98 per cent said they could apply the concept of job crafting to their own role. Follow-up workshops and questionnaires showed that 88 per cent of participants had actively applied job crafting in their roles compared to traditional learning transfer rates of circa 38 per cent).

At the second, review stage, the feedback was analysed and the executive board and employee representatives introduced it organisation wide.

Finally, Tailored Thinking designed a series of job crafting questions and activities which could be used at scheduled quarterly check-ins between team leaders and employees.

Each quarter involved a different job crafting theme including conversations about activity and tasks, responsibility, development, relationships and wellbeing. At the end of each of these conversations, employees set a small job crafting goal.

Giving staff more flexibility and control of their jobs was embedded into the day to day functioning of the organisation in an incredibly positive way.

Business outcomes include a 7 per cent increase in intention to stay at the company and increased attraction rates, with 95 per cent of NHS services fully staffed, and engagement levels have increased by 13 per cent since 2019.

Director of people Sarah Dewar said job crafting has now become a way of life within the company, with crafting conversations taking place at all levels of the organisation.

“Job crafting gives people permission and encouragement to innovate and share ideas about how work can be improved,” she explained. “It allows Connect to tap into and benefit from the diverse strengths, talents and experiences of our colleagues. “