We are pleased to welcome two new members who will lead our people directorate.
Dr Susy Cook has started her role as the new interim chief people office. And Graeme Raffell has begun as interim deputy chief people officer.
Dr Cook, who will lead on issues such as staff health and wellbeing, wrote to the workforce this week. She said: “Our roles are to take a lead in ensuring we are supporting you to allow you to provide outstanding care to our population.
“We want to help you all work in a culture where we are encouraged to learn, to act with compassion, to treat people fairly and ensure these practices and behaviours are followed and understood at all levels in the organisation no matter what role you have.
“The people directorate is driven by transformational and innovative change, with a focus on a more holistic people centric approach. This is all aimed at ensuring you – our people – have the best possible experience at work. This is supported through our people plan and people promise at national and local level.”
Over the next few weeks and months they will meet with staff and teams through events, forums and discussions about the people directorate.
A welcome from the new people directorate leads
Susy: Hello, I’m Susy Cook and I’ve joined the organisation as interim chief people officer.
Graeme: Hello, I’m Graeme Raffell and I’m the interim deputy chief people officer.
Susy: The new world of human resources and organisation development (OD) is now becoming more commonly known as people services, driven by transformational and innovative change with a focus on a more holistic people-centric approach aimed at ensuring people get the best possible experience at work.
And this is going to be a real focus for us going forward and fits with people plan people promise at national and local level.
Graeme: My job is to operationally manage the different workforce and OD teams here at the Trust so that could be anything from your business managers who are out there working with the care groups through to the OD teams delivering interventions and also things like medical education, recruitment, ESR and occupational health.
Susy: I really want people to know who I am and who Graeme is as deputy CPO and we’ll be creating forums for discussion and spending time with the organisation to hear more about how we can support you and how you can work with us.
And we’ll be working with the communications team to develop different mechanisms that works for everybody that support how we communicate with you going forward so that it’s a constant two-way dialogue.
Susy: In terms of my ambition for the organisation, I’d just really like our staff to feel safe, secure and empowered to give the best possible patient care that they can. I think for me the people plan encompasses everything that somebody would need to have a fulfilled and worthwhile career in the NHS.
Susy: So the people plan is about more people working differently in a compassionate and inclusive culture. It’s about looking after our people, it’s about focusing on health and wellbeing which has a major focus and we’re reviewing that work currently.
It’s a focus on inclusivity and diversity, it’s about reviewing our reward and recognition and creating a great employee experience and harnessing from that the talents of our people.
Graeme: If I could dispel one myth, I think it would be that we’re only ever brought in when something’s gone wrong. The vast majority of the work that we do in the directorate is geared around improving people’s working lives and, through that, improving the services that we deliver.
We’re often viewed as only being seen when something goes wrong and we want to dispel this myth and it’s really important that we do.
Whilst we do still require management from compliance to keep us safe as an organisation we want to continue to drive and transform the way we do this through our continual focus and our journey on just learning culture, through acting with compassion, treating people fairly and ensuring these practices and behaviours are followed and understood at all levels in the organisation, no matter what the role of the people in the organisation.