Andrea Stewart's Admin & Clerical Team

Team Journey

NHS Lanarkshire – iMatter Team Journey 

New Team manager – Andrea Stewart, Acute Directorate Support Manager

Size of team – 56 admin & clerical staff ( secretaries & ward clerks ) covering 9 specialities

I have a team of 56 admin and clerical staff who I manage on a daily basis. The team report was carried out at a time when I wasn’t the team manager. So I thought it was a great opportunity to have a team meeting about iMatter as it would bring us together and I could learn more about them. 

I have 9 different specialities/teams so I asked for one member of each team to come to this meeting to represent their individual specialties.  I sent the report via email to all staff and asked them all to read this before the meeting.

I decided to draw a river on a flipchart and took some post-it notes with me.   I asked staff to write down any descriptive words on three post it notes on how they felt currently in their posts.  I then asked them to stick the post it notes on whatever side of the river they felt like they were performing  as a team at present. 

One side of the river was the feeling of poor team performance and the other was excellent team performance.  We relaxed and had a bit of a laugh through the process, which I think was important. We went through each section of the report and drew up an action plan which took into account 3 main points to help us to get to where we want to be as a team.

 The teams actions included creating a contact list for all consultants and their secretaries at Monklands. The list has now become an invaluable communication tool for the department. They have also reminded all doctors to select the appropriate type of letter on their dictaphones to ensure that they can turn work around as quickly as possible.

Since completing iMatter, I have seen a positive impact in my team performance and morale. It helped to give my staff a voice as they were given a dedicated time to speak their minds on what is important to them.  It’s about making sure that staff are engaged, listened to and valued.  The  benefits of iMatter are invaluable to any line manager as it allows you to really understand your teams honestly and allows you to give dedicated time to them.