Barts Health NHS Trust
Barts Health NHS Trust operates four major hospitals and several community sites including the largest cardiovascular centre in the UK, serving 2.5 million people across East London.
With 24,000 employees, Barts Health went to market to find a solution partner to deliver their vision of an enhanced employee experience (EX). With a relationship spanning over 10 years, they chose to use VerseOne DXP to develop a rewards and recognition platform that could also integrate with their existing VerseOne intranet, WeShare. The resulting solution, 'Barts Hearts', has enabled scalable peer-to-peer recognition, driving engagement beyond expectations and creating a culture of appreciation that would have been unmanageable without automation.
We never imagined Barts Hearts would become so popular. The platform has truly transcended roles and locations, bringing together colleagues from across the Trust.
George McKenzie-Hurry, Recognition Engagement Manager, Barts Health NHS
The Goal
As the NHS is under increasing strain, Barts Health conducted a temperature check around the emotional wellbeing of their staff. From this, they identified the need to improve the facilitation of peer-to-peer, everyday recognition. Staff wanted visible and public appreciation, delivered through a simple thank-you message.
To bridge this gap, Barts Health used annual grant funding from Barts Charity to launch a cost-effective, user-centred, automated rewards and recognition solution, with the goal of:
Enabling peer-to-peer recognition accessible anytime, anywhere. Driving an engaging employee experience (EX) for all staff, volunteers and students across all sites.
Sitting at a competitive price point, utilising a pricing model deliberately designed for the NHS that becomes cheaper the more users engage with the solution.
Being accessible for staff and easy to manage internally, utilising automation where possible to ensure the solution can be managed by a small team.
Driving engagement with the existing 'We Share' intranet to provide more visibility of content, comms and clinical documents that enable staff to be more productive.
The Journey
At VerseOne, everything stars and ends with the user. Utilising our well-established user-centred project methodology, VerseOne conducted a series of persona and user-journey mapping workshops to build on the valuable feedback collected from Barts Health themselves. Off the back of these sessions, VerseOne's Creative User Experience (CrUX) team worked closely with Barts Health's branding team to bring their vision to life.
The result is an automated platform that empowers staff at all levels to provide peer-to-peer recognition, by sending a message of appreciation along with a 'Barts Heart' token to colleagues who go above and beyond. The platform integrates with the active directory within Barts Health's staff intranet, 'WeShare', allowing employees to easily search for a colleague they want to thank. These messages are also sent in real-time and are visible to all employees, allowing others to like or comment which further encourages engagement. Each month, staff receive five heart tokens to distribute, with no obligation to use all of them. The hearts reset each month, and once five are accumulated, employees can redeem them for rewards from a selection of branded merchandise. To support the programme launch, VerseOne's NHS team even provided on-site support by distributing flyers, speaking to hundreds of employees, and demonstrating how to use the platform. This hands-on approach helped create excitement around the launch and ensured high uptake, fostering a positive atmosphere and reinforcing Barts Health's culture of recognition and appreciation.
The Results
Eight months since launch, the Barts Health team have been overwhelmed with the success of their staff recognition initiative.
Positive feedback
A recent study revealed 79% of staff agree Barts Hearts recognises everyday acts of kindness, with 55% feeling more appreciated in their role, demonstrating the platform's positive impact on staff satisfaction.
Diverse user base
Previously, clinical staff rarely used the intranet, but Barts Hearts has enabled increased engagement with 36% of nursing and midwifery staff, promoting inclusivity and broadening participation in roles with the lowest intranet engagement.
Increased staff engagement
With 10,3680 users sending over 70,544 messages of appreciation, staff have been recognising colleagues once every five minutes, 24/7. More than 7,000 rewards have been claimed, with 5,380 users achieving five heart status.
Expanded access opportunities
Volunteers and contract staff were granted access to the platform, increasing intranet activity and allowing more staff to participate in other reward and recognition schemes, feeling valued and driving more engagement.
