Enjoying work in the City & Hackney Rehabilitation and Recovery Service

 17th December 2018

Running an Enjoying Work project is not always easy. Here’s what the C&H Rehabilitation and Recovery Service have learned and achieved so far. Words by Patricia Simoes, Project Lead.

What is your main aim with this project?

The main aim is to increase the number of good days reported by staff over a period of six months. We have been meaning to put a % to that, but have not yet done this. I think we haven’t gotten around to doing this because the number of people using the ImproveWell app is quite low, so we found it difficult putting a % to this aim when we felt it wouldn’t represent the whole team. But will discuss this in a core team meeting soon

What was the process to decide on which change ideas to test?

I guess the main issues which instigated change ideas were the practicality of putting them in place. For example, a change idea was to put plants in the office, however we had a very small budget for this and therefore not everyone is able to enjoy them. In addition, when putting a change idea such as a wellbeing lunch in place, we found it difficult to get everyone in the same place at the same time, which meant members from the team were unable to join; particularly admin and members from the Clozapine clinic who either had to stay at reception or do not work full time.

Other than this, when we first held a team meeting to come up with some change ideas, the changes which people in the team found of most importance were big systematic changes which we had no power over to do anything about. This meant we had to focus on smaller changes, but made us feel like we were ignoring what would be fundamentally important to the team.

What have you tested so far and what have you learned?

Here are some tests we’ve made:

A bake off – We organised a bake off as part of the Macmillan cancer charity coffee morning. We got a pack from Macmillan with promotional material to advertise the event.  We all ate a lot of cake! The atmosphere was nice and everyone chatted and had a laugh. This change idea achieved its aim which was to build friendly rapport between staff. It was suggested by some members for this type of event to become a regular occurrence, e.g. ‘More of it, perhaps every 3-4 months. It was v good fun’.

We are also still testing and collecting data on: Plants in the office; Chill out room; Wellbeing lunch focusing on feeling valued.

What would you say to teams that are thinking about starting their own Enjoying Work project? Any tips?

My number one tip would be to make sure the WHOLE team are up for taking part. You need a good response rate on the ImproveWell app as that data will be the core that drives the project. I feel like the team should view the project as part of their day to day work life and not as a side project which someone else has responsibility for.

What is next for your team?

For now, we are going to work on interpreting the feedback we have received for the current ideas in place in order to make more improvements. We are also looking at new ideas, such as a friends and family test which we could use to get feedback from clients in order to make staff in the team continue to feel more valued. ​