The pandemic has taught us that, no matter how well we plan, even the most resilient organisations can be surprised. Project Lift has a clear sense of purpose looking forward into what will certainly be a period of more uncertainty.
The Future for Project Lift – 2020 and beyond
Overview
A word of context.
During Lockdown we found that things people had taken away were then also enabled to be offered back through different routes. The sense of choice, the sense of being heard, or being loved, all these conditions of psychological safety: the sense of belonging that COVID threatened to take away from many elements, we have found has been able to be provided within communities and our networks. We have worked hard to build these through Project Lift and they have been a real support to each other. There are real connections there that have survived COVID, some have flourished during this time and they’ve been seen to be very important support mechanisms for our networks and people. We have seen that all play out during COVID – the ability to connect, to share, to collaborate, to learn, to just make sense of what’s going on and to offer mutal support and this has been really brought to life.
As we look to the coming period we see three things that are overarching insights or priorities that then act as a context for the practical aims for Project Lift for 2020 and beyond.
2020 and beyond – triple thread of context
Links between Wellbeing, Culture and Leadership
We have understood through COVID-19 that people really matter. Both this realisation and the prominence of the Wellbeing agenda have been energised through the collective experience of COVID-19. The people agenda is centrally important to a system that relies on people. As simple as this statement is, it is often forgotten. 2020 sees explicit links in conversation, thinking and collaboration around these three aspects of live at work.
Interconnectedness is key.
Project Lift is trying to enable the aspirations of the natural performance framework and that includes the unfinished business of integration. We need to actively continue integrating services culturally, through connections and Project Lift has started to do that and we hope that this continues to energise and increase. We hold connections and collaboration along with shared purpose firm within the ethos and this brings us back to focus on shared goals – health for the nation is more than healthcare.
Building on learning from the pandemic
We have seen that great things can happen, quickly, if people are combined around a common purpose. If we can understand how to harness purpose for good then great things can happen and we are excited to see how we can build upon this with others across the system.
‘We are in the same storm,
but not in the same boat.’
Damien Barr
While we do not know how the continuing pandemic will impact the next 12 months, we do know that wellbeing, compassion and connectedness are key .
Our plan for the this year
In our 2019 progress report, we committed to taking a robust and meaningful approach to evaluating the impact that Project Lift and our related activities bring and to continue to build on our experience and learning to date across all five elements of Project Lift. We committed to growing the collaboration – of Scottish Government, NHS Education for Scotland, Scottish Social Services Council – to work more closely with a network of collaborators from across public services, the third and independent sectors, with a clear focus on supporting the progress of Integration, exploring and experimenting with ways of achieving Sustainable Performance and Reform, and in achieving the outcomes of the National Performance Framework. The detail of our specific next steps in each of the five elements of Project Lift is outlined in the final section of the report however in outline, the next steps were:
- ENGAGEMENT Continue to build connections across the Health and Care and the wider Public Sector and enable people across our communities to connect with each other through Project Lift
- TALENT MANAGEMENT Continue to facilitate and broaden access to Talent Management and make the connections to broader leadership development opportunities.
- LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT Broaden the scope of leadership development and continue to make the connections across the system so that individuals and teams are enabled to access a range of development opportunities.
- VALUES BASED RECRUITMENT Improve and spread the application of Values Based Recruitment across Health and Care.
- PERFORMANCE APPRAISAL Continue to support the improvement and increasing relevance of the Performance Appraisal approach, ensuring that connections are made to Talent Management and Leadership Development.
What have we achieved - the 2020 reality.
- ENGAGEMENT we invested time resources as we continued to build connections, listening and creating dialogue which resulted in increased engagement across the website, app and events, and we saw people from a wider range of backgrounds connecting with us and with each other.
- TALENT MANAGEMENT we have facilitated access to Talent Management for a wider and more diverse range of individuals, increasing engagement and making connections to broader leadership development opportunities.
- LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT we have developed current offers and broadened the scope of new leadership offers, extending these out across the wider system reaching leaders at all levels from a more professionally, geographically and organisationally diverse population.
- VALUES BASED RECRUITMENT we have continued to support the improvement and application of Values Based Recruitment across Health and Care.
- PERFORMANCE APPRAISAL We have continued to support the improvement and increasing relevance of the Performance Appraisal approach, ensuring that connections are made to Talent Management and Leadership Development.
What have we found difficult this year and how might we do things differently?
Engagement
- We received the feedback that our website and communications were often very NHS orientated and we have worked hard with contacts within social care to adapt our language, voice and messaging to be more inclusive. This has included working more closely with SSSC, bringing in community partners with direct links and roles in the 3rd sector, social care and education for health and care services. We have also listened through community engagement, making it safe to be honest and disagree with us and through blind feedback and wider review with our communication partners, Daysix, in our website redesign.
- We have learned that sometimes the best thing we can do is get out of the way. When the pandemic hit, we spent the first few weeks creating space for those engaged with us, holding back our regular activities and listening to what different groups where saying. This was received well and has strengthened our resolve to be always listening.
- COVID-19 stopped us in our plans half way through what we were doing to support our community members to connect, exchange, learn and come together. We have since turned around a refocused and energised plan for moving forward for the next year, based on topics and conversations, hosted digitally for the foreseeable future.
- You can read more about these points in our engagement section
Talent Management
- It has been a busy time in developing the wider range of processes and tools and remaining sensitive to the needs of local systems and their operational pressures has been important. We are working hard with HR related teams to understand how we can support them in the area of talent management.
- Engaging colleagues in Health and Social Care Partnerships, care providers, and the 3rd /voluntary sector is still challenging and we are working hard to identify how to connect more effectively with more of the varied, diverse range of organisations.
Leadership Development
- The postponement of formal learning events for leadership cubed cohorts and national programmes was one of the most significant changes and required us to role model the ethos in our relationships to balance the variety needs across cohorts, collaborators and stakeholders.
- We continue to face the challenge of raising awareness and attracting more participants from Social Care and other partners to our Project Lift Community and development programmes.
- The challenges of the last year have accelerated the team’s appetite and capability to work virtually and reshape our development offerings for the online environment. This has served to enhance our collective skills and aptitude for working virtually going forward which will enable us to extend our reach
Values Based Recruitment
- Our exploratory work has reinforced the ongoing tension between a desire for national consistency and the importance of local autonomy and has also emphasised that the experience of those involved in such processes should always be a central consideration. We have been listening to understand through work across HR Directors, recruitment leads and conversation between Scottish Government, Boards and organisations.
- Progress has been slower than hoped due to the refocusing of resources on our response to COVID-19
Performance Appraisal
- We have contributed to evolving and improving the experience and impact of Performance Appraisal in supporting our senior leaders in embodying the attitudes and behaviours of the Project Lift ethos.
- We have worked to progress our understanding of what the holistic process could look like in the next phase of activity by listening to others across the system which has shown a range of activity depending on a range of factors within Boards and organisations.
2020 and beyond.
We know that there will be challenges ahead that we cannot yet see. We wait as a global community to see the ongoing impact of COVID-19 and how that manifests itself on our Nation, our health and care system, those that access it and those that work within it.
We are encouraged by the humanness we have seen in the responses in the past 6 months and how we, as part of the wider system, have adapted to support our communities, networks and organisations. If ever there was a time for the Project Lift ethos to be shown as the approach to enable transformational change, it is now.
- Engagement – we will continue to further reach across the Health and Social Care system to enable people across our communities to connect, inspire and learn together through Project Lift.
- Talent Management – we will continue to develop the Talent Management suite while extending access to both the platform and collaborative opportunities across health and social care and the wider public sector. We will also strengthen a national approach to succession planning and continue to broker connections between those identified as having potential and emerging leadership challenges.
- Leadership Development – we will continue rescheduling and recovery of development activities configuring these in a way that supports what’s needed in the system and draws upon whole system learning. We will continue to expand our range of offers, providing offers open to all and more tailored offers to specific target populations and groups identified through the Project Lift Talent Management process.
- Values Based Recruitment – we will continue to engage with those engaged in values based recruitment at a local level to learn from their experience and inform good practice and will support it’s extended, proportionate and effective use across health and social care and supporting the development and growth of individuals, whether they are successful or not.
- Performance Appraisal: we will continue to revisit how we can support the evolution and improvement of the experience and impact of Performance Appraisal with those across the Health and Care system who are using this while continuing to hold the central responsibility for ensuring it is part of the holistic approach to the career journey from recruitment to development.
Creating space
We have learned, and we do know, that the one thing everyone needs, and will continue to need more of, is space. And that is arguably something that gets harder to find, to be allowed to have time for, the more senior a role you hold.
It’s important that we focus on helping everyone – all people, all leaders, all roles, all across the system – to create, find and make that space. For themselves and for others, to be and to be together. Wellbeing is key to being human and there is hope in our humanness.
Contributors and Collaborators to our Collective Wisdom
This is not an exhaustive list by any means and we thank everyone who has helped shape and challenge our thinking.