WINNER☆ - Improving our Employee Investigations

Outstanding Contribution to Transforming Health and Care Award

Aneurin Bevan University Health Board

The Human Resources (HR) team at Aneurin Bevan University Health Board had undertaken a review of employee investigations over a 15-month period. 78 out of 109 misconduct investigations did not result in dismissal and could have been addressed through more lenient processes. The review also identified the average length of an investigation as 156 days. During this time, employees were facing potential dismissal – causing a significant impact on them at both a personal and professional level, as well as their families and teams.

A project was launched with the aim to reduce the number of employee investigations undertaken by 50%. The project acknowledged the potential harm that employee investigations can cause to both those being taken through the process and those involved in their delivery – as well as the impact on the organisation’s culture, reputation and finances. The HR review and impact assessment supported a need for change – highlighting that as an organisation, unintentional unnecessary harm was being caused to employees.

The project developed a number of interventions, including reviewing and updating the initial investigation assessment document, and the development and delivery of an “Employee investigations: Looking after the process and the people” training programme. Through a series of Plan, Do, Study, Act (PDSA) cycles, the initial assessment document was reworked to ensure information was being considered at the very beginning of the process rather than delayed until a disciplinary hearing at the end. A pilot training day was held to test more widely the avoidable employee harm concept, the compassionate approach to running investigations and the new approach to decision making and management. Online training was then introduced to the partnership forum and a further training day held, targeting attendance from divisions that were previously unrepresented.

Analysis of data from January 2018 to June 2023 has shown a reduction of nearly 67% of employee investigations commissioned.