Meet your organisation's economic challenges through collective difference
Rob McCargow, Partner at Green Park, explains why Trusts that embrace diversity in their recruitment and staff development will be the best placed to meet economic challenges.
The NHS faces one of the most challenging phases in its history. We are already seeing a complex set of changes, driven by the early steps of the quality, innovation, productivity and prevention plan. With the workforce accounting for the sizeable majority of the NHS’s budget, a key challenge for leaders will be increasing productivity at the same time as ensuring frontline services are protected and improved for the people who need them most.
Diversity is in danger of being overlooked in the latest efficiency drive. The trusts that most effectively understand and embed diversity will be the ones that thrive
It is little wonder that there is trepidation within the NHS about the short to medium term future. While QIPP presents a bold plan for improvement, the economic situation means that healthcare employees across the board are being asked to deliver more with less. Healthcare leaders who find ways to do that will prosper, but there are no simple answers.
Most leaders won’t consider diversity as a source of competitive advantage or improvement, but they ignore this opportunity at their peril.
Diversity is in danger of being overlooked in the latest efficiency drive. The trusts that most effectively understand and embed diversity will be the ones that thrive. Diversity is not just about fairness or legislation, it is about harnessing the value of different approaches, ideas and philosophies.
Diversity is the power of collective difference, finding new solutions, new ways of working and new innovations through teams comprised of people who will challenge and stretch each other, rather than thinking and working in a linear fashion.
Some high profile public figures, Labour acting leader Harriet Harman included, have asserted we would not be in the present economic trouble had our leadership groups been more diverse. Organisations that cannot incorporate new ways of working, innovations and best practice run the danger of repeating uninspiring levels of performance.
How can trusts achieve diversity within the QIPP context? It is not simple.
We need to build an understanding across healthcare that diversity is not just a legislative requirement, or a way to avoid negative publicity. Convincing people that there is value in collective difference is the first step on the path to getting them to take diversity seriously.
We desperately need to bring diversity up the value chain.
The NHS employee base is very diverse. The problem is it typically ends just above middle management.
Board level
Many organisations boast about the diversity of their workforces, but are less forthcoming about details of their composition at board or senior management level. Apart from a few high profile figureheads, a fairly homogenous group of people steer the NHS. This means we are missing out on the value of collective difference at strategic level.
We need every NHS organisation to look beyond the usual subjects in the pursuit of new talent. QIPP will inevitably lead to job losses, but it will also create new roles, or the need to replace underperformers.
It is not about positive discrimination - it is about ensuring recruitment exercises proactively seek the broadest, most diverse group of applicants. It includes seeking “difference” by importing skills and best practice from the private sector, for example.
Unfortunately, recruitment consultancies can be a block in this process: the industry lacks diversity, and is prone to unconscious bias in selection. Diverse CVs very often do not reach the NHS. Pick recruitment partners who show consistently high diversity statistics in their shortlists.
The NHS needs to proactively develop its high potential diverse incumbents, because they represent the next group of leadership role models. Most of these people probably feel that they are beneath a glass ceiling.
The key is to engage with and develop these talented individuals so they have every chance to succeed. They improve the diversity of future leadership teams and become role models that inspire the next crop of talented diverse employees from within and outside the NHS.
Diverse workforces mirrored by a diverse leadership provide a powerful driver for tackling the NHS’s challenges by increasing their likely agility and ability to be innovative. Increasing diversity is not just a legislative obligation, but a genuine business opportunity to improve frontline services in an environment where most of us will be asked to produce more with less investment. When we understand that, the word diversity will take on a new meaning in our boardrooms.
Posted 11-06-2010
