High staff churn and low motivation being over looked due to budget cuts

Milton Keynes, UK. – Tuesday 10 September 2013 – The Voucher Shop, a specialist provider of staff rewards, benefits and promotions, has conducted a first of its kind survey looking at the level of staff motivation within the NHS. Findings showed that seven out of 10 staff feel undervalued in their current role and further six out of ten staff are actively looking for a new job or considering another post.

The Voucher Shop 2013 NHS Employee Survey was completed by 2,185 NHS employees across the United Kingdom. Respondents were based in over 250 NHS Trusts and included employees at all levels within the NHS – including cleaning and administrative staff to midwives, nurses and doctors.

Key findings of the survey revealed:

•         Cost of living is still a major concern for NHS staff: 83 percent of staff said that they were not being given assistance with the rising cost of living.
•         A significant number of NHS Staff feel undervalued: 70 percent of staff were feeling “unappreciated” or given “not enough praise” for their work.
•         Six out of ten NHS staff maybe switching jobs in the next 12 months:  27 percent of NHS staff are actively looking to change jobs within the year and a further 32 percent of NHS staff considering a new post.  This will potentially put pressure to fill vacant posts and to train new intakes.
•         Communications about employee benefits needs to be improved:  44 percent of staff cited communication from their bosses on additional benefits to be very poor or poor, with only 3 percent saying it was excellent.
•         Long service milestones are being overlooked: 17 percent of NHS Staff said that long service milestones were not celebrated, 24 percent said that service milestones were too infrequent, and a further 17 percent didn’t even know if long service was celebrated in their Trust.

Kuljit Kaur, Head of Business Development at The Voucher Shop comments, “Media headlines are focused heavily on the need to cut costs – and the brunt of the pressure still lies with frontline staff that are expected to deliver more with less resource. HR professionals are aware that talent management and staff engagement are critical elements in delivering organisational efficiency. Yet, 50 percent of NHS employees say they don’t receive enough praise and 19 percent of staff feel completely unappreciated.”

Kaur adds, “Even with wage freezes managers can still do more to promote excellent work. Staff recognition need not be a costly exercise. In fact, non-cash rewards such as gifts or vouchers can result in 25 percent higher work performance than cash incentives. Even simple gestures such as a thank you, can increase a person’s willingness to help again by 100 percent.[1]   

Trust managers should also capitalize on money saving benefits that can help staff to stretch their salary further at minimal cost to the organisation. For example, The Voucher Shop is supporting schemes such as the PSCashback Black MasterCard® card, which has already delivered over £500,000 in cash back savings to NHS staff across the country. Today’s survey shows that NHS employees are at a tipping point. Organisations that do not make staff motivation a priority suffer the classic signs of high turnover and absenteeism – and even poor performance. Moreover, staff motivation is unavoidable if Trusts are to meet the duty of patient care as outlined in The NHS Outcomes Framework 2013/14.”

For further information please visit http://www.thevouchershop.co.uk/nhs-survey 

[1] http://hr.toolbox.com/blogs/strategic-employee-recognition/can-saying-thank-you-change-your-life-45505