The aim of our Investors in People (IiP) journey is to enable all of us to contribute our best and be involved in making ongoing positive changes in our workplace.
Our corporate objective of ‘Better Workplace’ sets out our priorities for creating a great place to work and growing our great community.
Our Workforce Strategy sets out how we aim to achieve this, and has Investors in People (IiP) at the core, reaffirming our commitment to the National Staff Governance Standards.
Making work better together is one of the key enablers of better patient care.
Our engagement with IiP assesses us as an employer, providing external benchmarking and assurance, continuous improvement opportunities and accreditation for achieving high workplace standards and being a great place to work.
IiP is an international global benchmark which is recognised in over 66 countries and working with them will provide us with an independent assessment of areas for improvement and celebration.
IiP provides a consistent framework that helps us to align all our initiatives within a holistic approach, including iMatter, Collaborative Conversations and other values and culture work. External benchmarking from IiP then provides NHSGGC with an independent assessment of areas for improvement and celebration.
Investors in People assesses organisational standards across 3 broad areas:
- Leading
- How much trust is there between leaders, colleagues and teams??
- Do we together live up to our values, and inspire the right kind of culture?
- Supporting
- Are colleagues and teams rewarded for doing well?
- Improving
- Are we as ready as we can be for any changes the future might bring?
Following the pilot and achievement of IiP accreditation at the Inverclyde Royal Hospital, colleagues and teams working within corporate services, including Estates and Facilities at our non-acute sites, have also successfully achieved the Investors in People standard.
Investors in People continues to make great progress across the organisation, and NHSGGC is aiming to continue our Board-wide work with Investors in People (IiP) in the next cycle of assessments.
Continuously learning about our opinions and viewpoints is essential to ensuring we can continue to grow and develop our workplace.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why did we choose Investors in People?
Over the years we have done a great deal of work to support staff and ensure that as an employer, NHSGGC is doing its best for staff. iMatter is the framework to develop our culture and collective leadership. It now includes the development of our staff mental health and wellbeing plan. Since the launch of iMatter, we have been looking for a way to assess and benchmark how well these efforts actually improve NHSGGC as a place to work for our staff and how we compare with other employers.
IiP is a key element of our Workforce Strategy and reaffirms our commitment to the Staff Governance Standards.
What is the aim of IiP?
The aim of IiP is to enable our staff to be involved in making ongoing positive changes. Our long term objective is to embed good people management practice in the core of services. The IiP process supports NHSGGC to put staff at the front and centre of our organisation. The IiP approach emphasises partnership working, collaboration and team working across staff groups and also along management and directorate lines.
What are the benefits of IiP?
- Improved staff motivation and morale.
- Provides independent in-depth insight into organisation culture and practice.
- Gives a clear road map and route for progression.
- Provides a consistent framework against which we can conduct internal and external benchmarking of people processes and performance.
- Enhances organisational reputation and is also a factor for being a more desirable employer to attract the people we need.
- Alignment of key people issues to the organisation’s performance and goals.
- All these contribute to enhanced patient experience and quality of care.
Who was involved?
IiP assessment has been rolled out across Acute and Corporate sites in five clusters, 344 Senior Managers and Medical Consultants
A randomly selected 5% sample of all colleagues were invited to take part. Of that sample 25% were senior managers, invited to in-depth discussions. 75% of the sample were staff groups invited to workshops for in-depth discussion.
This comprised of:
- 1310 – Members of staff taking part. That’s approximately 16 working weeks or 594 hours of dialogue with staff about what’s working well and what could be improved.
- 344 – Senior managers who took part in online interviews with IiP specialists.
- 337 – Face to face focus groups.
- 38 – Assessors who supported the focus groups.
What did we find?
What we do well as an organisation:
Our staff told us we were getting quite a few things right, such as:
- Operating in line with our NHS values, adopting and living the values
- Empowering our staff
- Making decisions
- Setting objectives
- Our approach to recognition and reward where staff are recognised for excellence
- Designing roles that were fit for purpose
- Creating autonomy in roles so our staff can give their best
- Enabling collaborative working with colleagues
- Supporting learning and development
- Creating a culture of continuous improvement
- Understanding the external context
Areas where we could do better
• Creating Transparency and Trust, specifically for leaders to provide more clarity around the organisations purpose, vision and objectives.
• Deploying the right people at the right time, specifically that recruitment and selection is fair, efficient and effective and fits with the organisations objectives and that any room for improvement in process (within the national policy and process) or queries, concerns and escalations are prioritised. Staff are also looking to be kept updated of plans around staffing challenges.
• Improving through internal and external resources, that the investment we make in our people is evaluated and the results are used to improve performance.
• Focusing on the future, specifically for leaders to communicate more around future priorities (staff want to know what/how things are happening and what/how to prioritise).
• Embracing Change, specifically when change happens it is communicated in a timely and transparent way across the organisation.
What happens next?
There are 5 Investors in People clusters across our Corporate and Acute Sector sites. Each Cluster has developed their own improvement plans, tailored to respond to feedback from colleagues in the cluster.
The IiP Clusters are:
Corporate Cluster
The Corporate Cluster is chaired by Anne MacPherson, Director of Human Resources and OrganisationalDevelopment and supported by Paul Cogan, Senior OrganisationalDevelopment Advisor.
The Corporate met the standards of IiP and achieved accreditation in April 2022.
The cluster is made up of all the corporate directorate office staff and the Facilities and Estates staff who work in discreet units, such as the Decontamination Unit and the Laundry (i.e. the Corporate and Facilities staff not based on acute sites).
They included staff from the following directorates:
- Chief Executives Office
- Board Medical Directorate (Excludes pharmacy as is covered as are in all hospitals sites, but incudes staff at Clarkston Court )
- Board Nurse Directorate
- Board Administration
- Corporate Communications
- Finance
- Human Resources & Organisational Development
- Non-Acute site eHealth (non-site based, Call centre in Hillington and Paisley Smithhills Street and Westward house)
- Public Health (including contact tracing, test and protect recovery and COVID Vaccinations)
- Non-Acute site Estates and Facilities (Cowlairs FM, Cowlairs Estates, Inverclyde CDU, Laundry)
Clyde Cluster
The Clyde Cluster is chaired by Melanie McColgan, Director for the Clyde Sector, led by Louise Watson SChief AHP Clyde and supported by Julie Pearson, Senior Organisational Development Advisor.
The Cluster is made up of all staff at :
- Royal Alexandra Hospital in Paisley
- Vale of Leven Hospital
- Inverclyde Royal Hospital
Inverclyde Royal Hospital was a single site pilot in 2021 and is now been included in the Clyde Cluster.
North Cluster
The North Cluster is chaired by Neil McCallum, Director for the North Sector, led by Alison Leiper, Chief AHP for the North Sector and supported by Claire Robertson, Senior Organisational Development Advisor.
The Cluster is made up of all staff at
- Glasgow Royal Infirmary Campus
- Stobhill Hospital
- Lightburn Hospital
- Rowanbank Clinic
- Leverndale Hospital
South Cluster
Jamie Redfern, Director of Women and Children’s Services is the Chair for the South Cluster, supported by Sue Tanner, Human Resources Manager South Sector and John Scrimgeour, Senior Organisational Development Advisor.
Sites in the South Cluster is made up of staff at:
- Queen Elizabeth University Hospital Campus
- Queen Elizabeth University Hospital
- Institute of Neurological sciences
- Spinal injuries Unit
- WestMARC on two sites QE and Yoker
- QEUH Maternity Unit
- Royal Hospital for Children
- Laboratory Medicine
- New Victoria Ambulatory Care Hospital
West Cluster
The West Cluster is chaired by Susan Groom, Director of Regional Services and supported by the West Cluster Senior Organisational Development Advisor and Nicola Bailey, Head of Human Resources for Regional and Diagnostics.
The Cluster is made up of all staff at
- Gartnavel General Hospital
- The Beatson West of Scotland Cancer Centre
- West of Scotland Breast Screening Service
- West Glasgow Ambulatory Care Hospital
- Lanarkshire Beatson
- Radionuclide Dispensary
For more information, comments or queries please email
ggc.investorsinpeople@ggc.scot.nhs.uk