Is there a more effective approach to address workforce wellbeing and productivity?
Recently, Naeem Younis, CEO and Founder of Strasys, was invited to speak at a Healthcare People Management Association (HPMA) webinar alongside Liverpool University Hospitals and Alder Hey Children’s NHS Foundation Trusts.
For over a decade, Strasys has been partnering with healthcare organisations in the UK and abroad, supporting them in redesigning healthcare systems, enhancing frontline services, and improving patient outcomes.
In this webinar, we explore how data analytics can help organisations, particularly in healthcare, adopt new people strategies and methods and make better decisions to improve productivity by addressing the unique needs of their workforce.
Understanding workforce diversity and the human stories behind the labels
In many organisations, especially large healthcare institutions like the NHS, the workforce is extraordinarily diverse. One in four staff members comes from an ethnic minority background, and one in five are foreign nationals, representing over 200 nationalities. Despite this, workforce planning often reduces people to job titles, roles, and disciplines, overlooking the personal factors driving performance and productivity.
However, acknowledging the individuality of each employee – considering their unique cultural backgrounds, motivations, and external commitments – can help leaders develop more precise interventions to bring about real, meaningful change that motivates and enables staff to deliver better patient outcomes.
The role of people planning in workforce management
Workforce planning has traditionally been conducted in isolation, often focusing on solving immediate operational challenges such as staff shortages, high turnover rates, and sickness levels. However, effective people planning should be more dynamic. It involves asking better questions and connecting diverse sets of data – such as staff, finance, performance, quality and patient outcomes – and the various motivations and agendas across the leadership team.
The key to improving workforce dynamics is to move beyond linear, one-size-fits-all approaches and focus on the human stories behind the workforce. Doing so enables organisations to develop more targeted interventions, improving retention, reducing sickness, and maximizing the return on investment in their workforce.
Workforce segmentation analytics - using data to improve wellbeing and engagement
If employees are the most valuable asset in any organisation, understanding what they do, how they do it, and how they feel about their work is crucial. Wellbeing directly influences productivity and performance. But how much of the budget is actually invested in the development and well-being of employees? Typically, it’s less than 1%. This raises important questions: where should resources be invested, and how can these investments create the greatest impact on both staff well-being and organisational performance?
The answers lie in using data analytics to develop personalised, targeted interventions. By connecting the right data points—such as financial data, staff demographics, and workforce activity—organisations can segment the needs, behaviours, and motivations that cut across the typical professional view to build a much better understanding of their employees and implement changes that will have the most significant impact.
Case study: Alder Hey Children's NHS Foundation Trust
One compelling example of the power of data-led workforce planning is the experience of Alder Hey Children’s NHS Foundation Trust. At the webinar, Melissa Swindell, the Chief People Officer, explained how data analytics helped the organisation develop a deeper understanding of its workforce, including the knowledge that 1 in 3 employees are on the move at anyone one time.
Strasys segmented the workforce into different cohorts, each with distinct characteristics and needs. For example, one segment included long-serving employees, referred to as “Stayers”, who had been with the organisation for eight years or more. These employees were highly experienced and committed but often felt disconnected from the organisation’s vision. By analysing their data, we identified this group’s unique needs and developed tailored interventions to improve their engagement and well-being.
The result? A 1% reduction in sickness rates, a 5% improvement in retention, and £70 million in financial savings. This initiative’s success also led to an international award and recognition from the Healthcare People Management Association, along with improvements in all their people promises in the national staff survey.
The importance of data-led decision-making
The work at Alder Hey highlights a broader trend in workforce management: the shift towards data-led decision-making. Traditional approaches to workforce planning focus primarily on operational challenges but fail to address the underlying personal factors that influence employee performance.
By leveraging data analytics, organisations can move beyond reactive planning and start making proactive, informed decisions. This means looking at employee data in a more connected and personalised way, asking better questions, and using data to tell meaningful stories that resonate with both staff and leadership.
Extending the approach to other healthcare organisations
The success at Alder Hey has inspired other organisations to adopt similar approaches. Heather Barnett, Chief People Officer at Liverpool University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, shared her experience of the work Strasys is supporting in implementing a workforce segmentation strategy in a much larger, more complex organisation. With over 15,000 staff spread across multiple sites, Liverpool University Hospitals faced significant challenges in terms of staff well-being, retention, and productivity.
By learning from Alder Hey’s experience and applying data analytics to their workforce planning, Liverpool University Hospitals is beginning to see improvements in retention and productivity. Heather emphasised the importance of using data to connect agendas across different levels of the organisation, from the front line to the boardroom.
Building capability for data-driven workforce planning
For any organisation looking to enhance its workforce planning through data analytics, building capability is essential. This means investing in the tools, skills, and capacity needed to gather, analyse, and interpret workforce data effectively. It also means fostering a culture of continuous learning, where organisations constantly ask themselves key questions, learn from their data, adapt their strategies, and take meaningful action.
The need to think differently
The use of data analytics in workforce planning is transforming how organisations approach productivity and performance. By adopting a more segmented, personalised approach, healthcare organisations like Alder Hey and Liverpool University Hospitals Trust are improving retention, reducing sickness, and generating significant financial savings.
At the heart of this approach is a commitment to understanding the unique needs of each employee. For organisations looking to enhance their workforce planning, the message is clear: the future lies in data-driven decision-making. By investing in the right tools and strategies, organisations can unlock the full potential of their workforce, improve productivity, and deliver better outcomes for both staff and patients.