Our People Strategy 2016 – 2020
Drive, Challenge, Improve and Share
NHSBT has a clear purpose – to save and improve lives. We stand for hope. We stand for life. We stand
for helping people to do something extra ordinary, save and improve the lives of others. We achieve this
through our 5,500 people who carry out their work in a number of professions and in a variety of locations
across the UK.
Our People Strategy ‘sets the weather’ for the organisation to ensure that everyone working here, or who
joins us in the future, understands our ambition, our expectations of each other and how it should ‘feel’ to
work here. In its simplest form we will be clearer on the contract we make to everyone working here and
in return, what we expect as part of that arrangement. We call this the ‘NHSBT People Pledge’. This simply
describes the ‘ask’ of everyone working here and what they should expect in return for that commitment,
as follows:-
People Pledge
In return
• Be present and punctual
• Honesty and fairness
• Be responsible for keeping us safe
• Timely feedback
• Be innovative
• Access to learning and development
• Respect each other
• Tools to do the job
• Take action
• Simpler processes
• Help, support and inspire each other
• Recognition
• Speak up and ask
• Clarity on expectations
• Promote donation
Our expectation is that everyone working within or joining us will live our values of Caring, Expert and
Quality and will demonstrate the required behaviours in everything they do. We will be clear on our
expectation for this and ensure these required behaviours are thoroughly embedded within our daily work
and tested within our processes from recruitment through to exit to ensure we maintain this way of working
for the benefit of all.
This strategy draws together the themes covered in the business unit strategies, and is designed to enhance
rather than replace these. It brings together in one place, the common workforce issues and themes, and
highlights the specific key areas for future development and/or discussion. The People Strategy sets out
our ambition and aspirations for our Teams, our key workforce priorities, and importantly how we aim to
support and develop our workforce to deliver the very best service possible for our patients, donors and
customers. This is described within five key aims:
• Attract the best people - Any organisation needs to attract the best talent and expertise to deliver its
core purpose. We have made significant improvements in our approach to recruitment processes and
systems, but the future demands more innovative and flexible recruitment solutions. This is needed,
not just in terms of our processes, but will require a step up of our recruitment efforts through better
branding of posts and the organisation, and the more innovative use of technology and social media
available to us. Our vision will be to develop consultancy style recruitment practice to maximise our
opportunity for attracting the best people of the future, by using the most up to date recruitment
practices, the development of exciting career paths and innovative approaches to finding key skills and
talent through social media and other technologies.
• Develop and grow our talent – We pride ourselves on the high quality learning and development
offered to our people. In a challenging financial environment this is often the area at most risk, but we
recognise the impact high quality learning and development has for the organisation and its people.
This means greater focus must be placed on evaluating value for money and outputs of certain
learning and development interventions whilst possibly considering more innovative ways of securing
the current levels of Learning & Development.
• Retain our people and skills – We need to retain key skills and experience and be more
sophisticated in how we recognise high performance and contribution. We need to create a more
flexible reward structure, within our current Agenda for Change Terms and Conditions framework,
ensuring everyone has clarity on what benefits they receive whilst working here and ensuring these
are flexible enough to suit the individual requirement. We want people to see NHSBT as an employer
of choice and promote us as an employer to their family and friends. Our People Pledge should assist
with this aim.
• Lead with passion – Strong leadership should be at the heart of any high performing organisation.
Recognising each others roles as leaders and realising the pivotal role leaders can play in setting the
culture and heart beat of an organisation must not be underestimated. Leaders are at every level
within the organisation, but to realise their potential they have to feel empowered and engaged.
We must create the right environment for this and encourage leaders to challenge, innovate and more
importantly, engage their teams in delivery.
• Create the right environment – To strive and succeed we believe we need to create an environment
that cares and supports its people, but at the same time provides a structure and process for all to
operate in successfully. The environment needs to be conducive to engaging our employees and
ensuring we maintain a safe and secure working environment, where all recognise their responsibilities
for health and safety and wellbeing.
The Workforce Directorate will continue to support the objectives highlighted above by ensuring it
provides systems and services which enable this strategy to be realised, and will present an annual
report on progress to both the Workforce Steering Group and the NHSBT Executive. Details of specific
objectives, actions and measures for each of the five areas can be found in the full People Strategy
document.
This is an exciting time for NHSBT and if we utilise the skills and talents of our organisation to best effect,
the objectives outlined in this document can be achieved and exceeded making NHSBT an employer of
choice, as we continue to Drive, Challenge, Improve and Share.
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