by Ross Wigham
Boundaries between internal and external communications have blurred, with NHS staff often using external sources to get their information. To ensure cut through of accurate COVID-19-related news, a new strategy was needed to ensure messaging was received by everyone in the organisation.
You’ll learn:
• About the strategic importance of internal communications since the start of the pandemic
• The importance of consistency and authenticity in building trust with staff
• How a staff surveying scheme has helped inform management decision making and information sharing, made staff feel valued and reduced stress
I wish I was writing this chapter in happier circumstances, but sadly health and care staff right across the country have been working in absolutely exceptional circumstances for a sustained period of time now.
As national chair of NHS Providers’ communications group and also an NHS communicator on the coal face, I’ve seen this first hand and really want to say thank you to all the teams who have been working so hard in such difficult times.
As professional communicators we’ve had a key role to play in this crisis not only with the public, but also in supporting, engaging, informing and updating our own staff. It goes to prove what we’ve always known about strong communications and public relations being so vital, especially during times of crisis. This has certainly been a profound and perhaps an existential challenge that has needed a huge volume of communications effort.
The importance of internal comms
Internal comms can sometimes feel like the poor relation to PR in the public sector, but with the current workforce challenges coupled with the global pandemic it’s become more important than ever during the past eight months.
During the crisis I’ve had roles at two different NHS organisations – one smaller and centralised, the other large and dispersed – but one thing that has really struck me is the importance of getting the internal communications rhythm and volume just right. Too much, too quickly and people get information burn out, too slow and not enough and they will quickly become cynical.
For some time traditional boundaries between internal and external comms have been breaking down, with staff becoming more used to getting information from elsewhere and using networks that are primarily designed for communicating with the public.
Consistent approach
Having a different ‘face’ for the public and the people you employ has not really been viable during this crisis, especially when you want to create trust and consistency in your organisation.
Under such huge scrutiny and pressure the information presented to the public and staff had to be consistent to be authentic and believable at a time when trust in national messaging was at times very low, particularly on issues like PPE or testing.
Employees now access messages from so many sources that the lines between staff and public comms are blurred and far less defined in the social media age. Everything needs to be lined up and balanced because our staff are the public too.
Strategy
The starting point for us in the pandemic was developing a really clear strategy on how we planned to communicate with people during an unprecedented event. In Gateshead the external challenge was large and fairly straight forward but internally it was really complex. We had to quickly provide a team that could cover strategic and tactical operations over seven days and make sure our own 5,000 staff understood what was going on. Our strategy was to effectively create a newsfeed for staff that could be accessed by email or smartphone app at any time.
Seeking feedback to make sure people were getting what they need was really important even during a crisis. In a fast moving situation we tried to do this though Twitter DMs, email and online surveys.
Working at such pace and scale in a way the NHS has never done before reminded me a bit of the comparison between the symphony of test match cricket vs the pop music of T20 – it’s the same skills but a totally different game.
Teamwork
During COVID-19 we’ve seen first-hand how amazing frontline NHS staff are, but also appreciated the vital role that support staff play in mobilising such a mammoth effort. It simply couldn’t be done without HR, facilities, logistics, cleaners and all the others who are playing a huge part, so our communications needed to appreciate and understand that.
Strong networks and group support were vital and one thing that has been invaluable is our daily call with heads of communications across the North East but also national groups like NHS Providers and all the informal virtual support for comms people that sprung up organically.
The importance of trust
We know that trust in institutions has been falling for some time and while the NHS is a much loved institution it’s certainly not bullet proof. The organisations that did well during the crisis were the ones that worked hard to build trust over the longer term, used the right spokespeople and engaged with staff in an open and responsive way.
I know that many will disagree here but over-communication, especially for staff, is a huge risk. There is so much noise in the system I can see how staff can switch off when bombarded with too much information. We needed to keep space for thought and reflection so that the really urgent issues can cut through the noise. In both Gateshead and Northumbria we restricted communications to clear, dedicated bursts at set times during the week so that people knew when to tune into the things that were really important.
Listen and support
One of the easiest ways to find out how staff are feeling and whether your channels are hitting the mark is to ask them.
In Northumbria Healthcare the team stepped up their determination to listen and support staff with a scheme that saw more than 10,000 responses.
When the pandemic started the trust established Corona Voice, a weekly survey of staff where anyone could raise issues, provide information, answer questions or just say how they were feeling at the time.
The system received 10,044 responses from staff in the first three months and gave senior managers a real-time way of resolving issues and supporting staff groups. This provided the organisation’s gold command with a weekly thermometer of staff morale but also informed decision making on some key issues. Each week the results would be published so that staff could see what was being said overall and get some feedback from senior management.
Not only did this make staff feel valued, but it also helped them to express any negative feelings and reduce stress.
It also helped the organisation understand the impact of changes to working patterns and redeployment, if key messages and national communications were hitting home, how worries and anxiety were impacting on staff and what could be done to help.
The internal comms team got some fantastic feedback through this system and worked closely with the HR and staff experience teams to ensure this was a success. Some of the best feedback came from those on the frontline.
Supporting staff and ensuring they can offer the best possible care has been a key driver in the wider success in Northumberland and North Tyneside, with recent public satisfaction scores actually increasing to 94% during the pandemic.
As well as this, results for Northumbria Healthcare from the Care Quality Commission’s adult inpatient survey 2019 were the highest in the North East and among the best in the country.
Reward and recognition
One thing I was reminded of by staff right throughout the pandemic was that staff wanted our work to reflect the successes in very dark times. Many wanted us to provide some kind of antidote to the understandable media focus on death rates.
That’s where our internal and external comms would meet to celebrate patient recovery and really recognise the achievements of all staff in achieving this. Some of the most special moments were the videos we captured of patients being clapped out of hospital when they recovered or colleagues from across the emergency services coming together to applaud each other’s efforts.
While these were some of the darkest days we’ve known, they were also some of our proudest moments as professional communicators.
Ross Wigham is chair of the NHS Providers #CommsLeads network and deputy director at Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust. Before this he was head of communications and marketing at Gateshead Health NHS Foundation Trust.
Twitter: @RossWigham