Development of Women in Finance and Procurement at Barts Health NHS Trust

The vision of NHS Bart’s for the empowerment of women

Barts Health NHS Trust identified a need to support women in removing obstacles in their working lives, both to help them to thrive and be effective at work. Barts wanted to encourage more women to be successful in securing the most senior-level positions, to close the gender gap.

The goals of the programme

The sponsors at Barts Health NHS Trust invited Treehouse to help design and deliver a programme with the purpose of helping women in Finance and Procurement at NHS Barts to overcome the barriers they face in their roles. The programme needed to equip women aspiring to senior positions with the tools and self-belief to pursue and win those roles. And for women at all management levels, the programme would enable them to feel empowered in their careers and working lives.

The Thrive programme designed

Barts Health NHS Trust identified seven topics from focus groups they had held with their staff.  On the back of this, Treehouse were able to identify key themes to create a journey through the seven topics building a programme comprising seven workshops, with one workshop taking place per month.

In addition, participants attended three Action Learning Sets (at the end of each theme), in which participants could coach and support one another to deal with issues and challenges they faced as they applied their learning.

The themes of the programme were:

• Me and my preferences: This included two workshops, Understanding Myself and My Confidence. Treehouse used a psychometric profile to help participants understand themselves and one another and to communicate with them effectively. We used marketing principles and 360-degree feedback to help women to identify their brand and embrace a confident approach.

• Nurturing myself, building my energy and defining my boundaries: This included two workshops, My Personal Effectiveness and My Resilience. In these workshops, the women covered topics on how to use energy effectively, how to restore energy, how to identify and build on their values and strengths and use resources and boundaries to ensure effective contribution. They learned to present confidently, change the dynamic in challenging situations, provide feedback and take an adult approach to effective problem-solving.

• Achieving my purpose, developing my skills and my network: This included three workshops covering: My Networking and Advocacy, My Career and My Skill and Integration. These sessions prepare the participants for career development and successful progression, aligned with their aims and goals.

Tell-Show-Do

Treehouse designed engaging sessions, using Tell-Show-Do methodology. With supporting materials, including toolkit cards as a reference for key knowledge points and a programme journal, Treehouse tied together the learning and insights from each module, across each theme and from the Action Learning Sets. Participants completed exercises between modules, for example; a personality profile, 360-degree feedback, completing spotting tasks and identifying values, making them ready to work on each module topic as they came.

Working together with NHS Barts

The design and delivery of the programme was undertaken by a multidisciplinary team of skilled Treehouse facilitators, with expertise in psychology, coaching and marketing, and who are experienced in commercial and professional roles.

Treehouse worked closely in a partnership approach with Barts Health NHS Trust, meeting regularly with them and engaging with the client in a rolling design process. Feedback from each workshop was promptly reviewed, with each workshop built on feedback from previous workshops as well as the initial focus groups.

Measuring the effectiveness of the Thrive programme

Since completing the Thrive programme, four women have been promoted to senior roles and the Finance and Procurement gender pay gap has reduced by 6 points from 10.3% in March 2021 to 4% in January 2023. As a result, Treehouse’s Thrive programme won the 2023 NHS Excellence in Supply Award (Support Services category).

Participants’ starting point was measured using a survey to cover each topic. This was put in place to inform the design and to measure progress at the end of the programme.

Whilst the programme is still underway the feedback so far has been positive:

• Delegates have expressed they look forward to the monthly sessions and learning from them

• They are demonstrating mature support of one another in action learning sets and can problem-solve issues they are facing

• Further feedback from sessions is overwhelmingly positive, with elements scoring high including:

  • the interactivity of the sessions

  • variety and subject matter of the topics and content

  • the balance of different learning formats

  • the focus on the practical application of knowledge gained

Feedback from Barts Health NHS Trust:

Getting feedback from the programme sponsors is also crucial to the success of the programme. So far Barts have been impressed with the genuine energy and enthusiasm from the Treehouse team. They also felt the Treehouse proposal brought theory and structure to the methodology and the implementation is firmly focussed on addressing the programme’s goals.

Barts felt the Treehouse team and facilitators who presented have been warm and very well-received by our group, and the materials used in the programme are of a very high standard.

Impact on Contribution

The impact on participants’ contribution is significant. Equipped with self-belief, restored energy and the tools to move forward, participants are better equipped for the challenges ahead. The ability to manage challenging situations, solve problems and communicate effectively means their overall contribution to the organisation and themselves is higher and along with their prospects for career progression.

Thrive is a contribution programme developed in partnership with Barts Health NHS Trust with its foundations based on Treehouse’s Contribution offering.

If you want to close the gender gap by enabling more women to be successful in securing the most senior-level positions then get in touch below:

Treehouse’s Thrive programme won the 2023 NHS Excellence in Supply Award (Support Services category). The award ceremony took place the 10th of April 2023 in London and we are delighted to have been recognised for developing the capability of inspirational senior women at Barts NHS trust. The programme is now in it’s third year and is now available to women in North East London Hospital Partnership of which Barts is a member.