Case Study:
UK NHS Trust

Improving Employee
Engagement and

Customer Service

Context

This NHS Trust is serving a population of 1 million, employing 7,000 staff members. One of the clinical directors and the Chief Operating Officer decided to use the 6 Box Model to assess organisational health following a number of internal changes. Results were obtained from random samples selected from each of three categories of the Trust, respectively: those that had implemented distributed leadership practices; those with traditional leadership; and Central Services.

Implementation

There was a similar pattern across the three samples, though Distributed Leadership did score more highly than Traditional Leadership. In both, the category Individuals scored high, and Systems, Strategy and Resources significantly lower. The Trust scored well on ethical values and trust, but needed to improve on employee welfare and reducing ‘command and control’. The results led to an extensive Action Plan and ‘creative discussions’, and much more attention to communication, training and career planning.

Outcome

The impact of these changes was widespread as the organisational culture became much more people focused, more investments were made for staff training and wellbeing which resulted in a reduction of absenteeism and staff attrition. The Clinical Director reported: ‘The organisational diagnostic exercise based on Prof Hlupic’s 6 Box Leadership Model provided an extremely valuable perspective on how our strengths and areas for development as an organisation can be exploited for the benefits of both our service users and our workforce.’