Reducing the harm of our HR processes by listening to those who’ve been through them
When we first met Alex, whose experience became the case study at the heart of our recently published paper, The impact of poorly applied human resources policies on individuals and organisations, they were keen for their experience to be used to provide a deeper understanding of how employee investigations can cause significant harm.
Alex had been taken through a flawed process which had caused them considerable psychosocial harm because of the way it had been managed and led. An evaluation suggested that their level of trauma from this incident was consistent with a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) 14 months after the investigation had concluded.
There is currently little research on the impact of employee investigations on those being taken through them, or indeed those involved in the process – whether that’s human resources professionals, managers, individuals called to be witnesses or staff side representatives. However, through our work, we are increasingly seeing that the employee investigation process has the potential to cause much wider harm than we might have imagined.
Moving on
One of the main reasons for the limited insight is the desire that individuals and organisations have to ‘move on’ after the conclusion of often challenging processes. The individual concerned wants to quickly regain control of their life and find a sense of normality away from the crushing pressure they have been under. Organisations will always have many other commitments that need resolving and for those who have witnessed or been involved in the process, they are equally keen to quickly put the experience behind them.
Alex’s story and willingness to share their experience was an opportunity for us to learn and try to make these processes more compassionate, less wasteful and more effective.
We rarely get to see the full picture of a process and how it’s impacting those involved in it; someone might start it, another may pick it up and yet another may bring it to a conclusion. These processes often take a long time to resolve, increasing the chances of more people being involved which often leads to greater confusion. Alex’s case study maps out their journey, the interactions with different colleagues, the complexity of the system and the failed parts of the process and the impact that had.
Employee journey
Over recent years, healthcare has been increasingly committed to mapping and understanding the patient’s journey through the system – providing a new lens and insights to improve the experience for others. We’ve been slower to do that with our employees and the processes we put them through. But we know from Alex’s story, it is something we need to be rapidly correcting if we are to ensure the best duty of care and a commitment to employee wellbeing through extremely challenging processes.
Of course, the value in mapping out a journey is that we are able to see issues that we may not have considered previously or fully thought through. In Alex’s case, this included the impact of poor communication, assurances provided and broken, and a failure to provide appropriate care and support. As we have identified in our review of Alex’s experience, there can be considerable wider impact for poorly delivered processes.
We also hadn’t fully understood the impact of these processes on colleagues involved in leading or contributing to the process, or those looking on and the real potential for damage to that very valuable, but highly fragile commodity of trust and confidence within an organisation. This gave rise to concerns of how they may treated if they had found themselves in a similar position to Alex. And without that psychological safety, the damage can spin out to others and ultimately the patients and communities the NHS exists to serve.
Lived experience
Alex gave us valuable insight into one lived experience. That insight has already shaped a training programme in our health board – Employee investigations: Looking after your people and the process – to bring about change in the way that we commission and run our employee investigations.
Along with the work of our HR colleagues, who have shared an equal passion to improve our investigations, we have seen a reduction in the number of investigations being run and also the length taken to conclude them. Together this has led to a reduction in employee sickness days, creating financial savings during constrained economic times.
Though sharing their story, Alex had wanted something positive to come out of their difficult experience. They have certainly achieved that – and through the ongoing work of many colleagues in our health board and now, across NHS Wales – their legacy could be far greater than we had thought possible. In the same way patient stories have affected the delivery of healthcare, we now need to take a similar approach and listen and learn from the experiences of our workforce to bring about meaningful change.
Dr Adrian Neal is the Head of Employee Wellbeing at Aneurin Bevan University Health Board in NHS Wales and Andrew Cooper is Head of the Avoidable Employee Harm Programme within the health board.
Read The impact of poorly applied human resources policies on individuals and organisations.
A version of this post was first published on the website of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement on 31 May 2023.